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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988958">Much Worse Than Death</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silirt/pseuds/Silirt'>Silirt</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mortality and Evil [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Death Eaters, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Horror, Mystery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:49:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>184,446</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silirt/pseuds/Silirt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What remains of team 'doing the right thing' soldiers on, the loyalty of the Dark Lord's followers is tested, and the forces of necessity revel in their success. Secrets will be revealed, convictions will be betrayed, and people will die. Fifth Year of AU, sequel to Beyond Fear or Reason</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mortality and Evil [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1219544</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue: The Brothers Black</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius had been grateful for the help of the mysterious witch and wizard.</p><p>All the same, the conflicts he knew had been confusing enough; he had not needed to be introduced to more. In the past two months, they had joined the search for his brother, who appeared to know something about a 'Goldstein' character, whom they were clearly hunting. The short version was that he had killed someone precious to each of them, and at the very least he could not be allowed to get away with it. What confused them was that his brother, Regulus, claimed unambiguously he had Goldstein in a box, a common method for transporting prisoners in his day. <em>They claim he's some sort of personal enemy to the Death Eaters, so they would be looking for him as well.</em></p><p>The younger wizard was a man named Charlie Weasley, and it was perfectly apparent he was related to Arthur and Bill, whom he had met in passing. The witch who had been in his company was still a student, so Sirius joined him in insisting she return to her studies, and at length she agreed.</p><p>"You lost your sister, then? Does your family know?" he had asked.</p><p>"They know. I wrote each of them a letter- well, I may have copied sections of it, but I wrote them all."</p><p>"They sent you here alone?"</p><p>"They have problems of their own. It only takes one person to follow one lead, and that was all we had."</p><p>Their conversations going forward were about as long and detailed, if that.</p><p>
  <em>The young man doesn't trust me. What should I expect? He only decided to trust me on a whim, on my decision to escape rather than attack him.</em>
</p><p>In truth, he knew it was more complicated than that, but Charlie had decided not to share the extent of his reasoning. The pair of them were in Morocco, a northern city on the coastline called Tangier, as the locals had some idea there were Death Eaters around. The two of them had found it easier to convince people they were servants of Voldemort looking for their fellows rather than their enemies looking for targets to follow.</p><p>"How is your brother the key to everything?" the red-haired wizard had asked yesterday.</p><p>"Albus Dumbledore told me to find him," he said, turning to see an incredulous expression. "I caught his last words as he died in Azkaban."</p><p>"That's all you know about why he's important?"</p><p>It was not the first time the younger wizard had asked of his brother's importance.</p><p>"How important was your sister when you went looking for her?" Sirius asked. "My brother knows things, and may well be the key to the war, Voldemort, or evil itself. His speech might have been given to understatement, but Dumbledore did not take half-measures. We need to stay focused."</p><p>He imagined that to the locals, looking for siblings was eventually going to register as a likely story, and after that, 'a likely story'.</p><p>Walking on the beach, it was evident there were tourists from across the Mediterranean, but only by the languages he overheard- the people looked about the same on either side due to similar environments and millennia of interchange. Charlie took note of this, commenting that at least they were less likely to stand out.</p><p>"They've seen a white person before," he responded, deciding it was necessary to be blunt. "True, as you get into places like Uagadou that have been cursed off the maps, you get a more insular society, but everyone else watches color televisions like the rest of the muggles. Your friend's choice of words suggested she lives among them."</p><p>"Well, yeah, Secrecy sort of works differently here."</p><p>Sirius had ventured into the nonmagical world as a way of rebelling against his parents a long time ago, but he was painfully unaware of how their society generally worked. He had never been to an alien planet, but it had to be a little like traversing the streets muggles built by hand. He had always viewed them as people, no different than squibs kept in the dark, but their world continued to have an unfamiliarity to it.</p><p>In either case, it was better to keep an eye out for dark magic.</p><p>From a dubious street stand in the magical part of Casablanca, they had picked up what Weasley called 'a dark detector' or something like it. It was an enchanted oud, not that it was uncommon to have instruments that played themselves, but the peddler said only those who had used dark magic would hear its tune. It was silent to Charlie, so Sirius shrugged and paid the full price, not that he liked the sound of it.</p><p>It was fortunate that many people in the streets that passed by as he idly strummed were turning to the sound to look, which he knew meant it was rather common to experiment with dark magic, but it would keep any disguised Death Eaters from picking up on cues from everyone around them. <em>If enough people were ignoring the sound entirely, the rest of them would just go along with it, even if they did not suspect any trick. </em>On the reverse, this meant that he and Charlie had to scan more faces as they turned to the music to look for anything suspicious.</p><p>Ever since they realized that Regulus, Said, and Goldstein, captive or otherwise, had left Casablanca, they had relied on the words of passers by for hints of Death Eater activity in the Maghreb, and the younger wizard had been instrumental in asking some of the dark wizards he had met in the summit what they knew on the mysterious servant of the Lord Voldemort, the only one who had not deigned to speak. As it turned out, the infiltrators had not been the only ones to find him a bit suspicious, or at least interesting, as he might have been in an exploitable conflict of interest. He told them a number of different places he was headed next, but one of them was Tangier, and the locals had already told them about the Strait of Gibraltar, though asking around with them was more time consuming.</p><p>Asking the dark wizards from the summit had its disadvantages as well, though they came in the form of assassins the two of them had to fight.</p><p>Incapacitating their attackers had proved to put them on better terms with the local authorities, who had been searching for a few of them. As they questioned the detainees, they learned little about who had sent them, but they had enough for a conviction and rewarded the oddly helpful foreigners with a few street numbers under which to look for Death Eaters. Patrolling up and down playing the enchanted oud was unlikely to get them anything other than suspicious eyes, but posing as a street performer and one who watches him unseen seemed to be equally ineffective, at least thus far. They heard only a few whispers, and Sirius quietly supposed he had great luck in finding the city, and he might have expected his luck to run out.</p><p>A witch lying in the sand took notice of the sound with a soft smile in their direction, eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. She was not one of the locals, to be sure; she was several shades darker. <em>I suppose this place is what Africans think of when they think of going to the beach. </em>For Brits it was mostly the Spanish islands, though for his family this included Antilla, a phantom island as the muggles called it. The Blacks had been among the first to set foot on it, and decided there should be a sunny paradise not polluted by the nonmagical. <em>The real reason was that they found the location was astronomically significant, but there was no need to tell the exploradores.</em></p><p>"<em>Bonjour, belle</em>," he started, still playing. He noticed no particular reaction to his attempt at French. Charlie was pretending to be watching something else, but the younger wizard was not gifted in subtlety. "Have you seen a man who looks just like I do?"</p><p>"Perhaps I have. Many a foreign wizard comes to this beach for the same reason I do." <em>I'm getting nowhere.</em></p><p>"Then perhaps you've seen my brother. He prefers the look of a polished gentleman-"</p><p>"To that of a stray?" she interrupted, offering the briefest of smiles. "I saw him. He asked me if I knew Bakr of the Draa after he saw me raise a shadow to keep the sun from my eyes." Her head cocked. "Magic is magic, south of the sea... I use it for my purposes, and mine alone. I know nothing of what those wizards do."</p><p>He decided not to ask her name, since she seemed to like her mysteries.</p><p>"We're looking for Bakr. At least he's a public figure, so more people can point us in the right direction."</p><p>"Well, yes, but it's also a disaster that we have a lead, because you don't get to talk to random-" Charlie started as he followed after him.</p><p>"It's all part of the search, friend. We should head to town; I get the idea our friend doesn't come all this way to go to the beach."</p><p>Quietly he supposed the dark wizard did not come to Tangier to be followed by a suspicious pair of foreigners, made no better by the fact that the Weasley only narrowly managed to convince them that Sirius was a part of the Black Sea Sorcerers, though he had only been pretending to be a part of it himself. Fortunately, he recognized the highly distinct wand of Albus Dumbledore, and recalled a specific spell the previous owner used on one September, 1983. It was an odd date to choose, but it was difficult for the dark wizard with a wand to his throat to form an objection, especially when translating through Wahde. For some reason Charlie's words sounded more succinct and decisive in Arabic than anyone else's sounded in English.</p><p>In town they walked along row after row of white buildings. The city lacked a distinct magical quarter, as it was with some cities, towns, and small islands. They asked after Bakr on the appropriate street, which provided more descriptive results than they had received in the recent past, especially after they said he was conversing with the Death Eaters they were searching before. It was getting dark, and he knew Regulus would be out at night, if at all, so he kept his eyes peeled for light charms.</p><p>Contrary to their expectations, they saw the Egyptian first.</p><p>"Said," the younger wizard started. "I recognize you from the summit. Tell me, what became of Goldstein?" He stepped right into the accent, moderately impressive by Sirius's measure.</p><p>"Ah, the young master continues to interest you, then," the dark wizard responded. "Perhaps it would have been better to send a letter, as a secret admirer."</p><p>"<em>Stupefy."</em></p><p>The Egyptian dropped immediately. <em>When did he get his wand in his hand?</em></p><p>"That's a groovy trick you have there." The older wizard was checking for anyone at all around them as he spoke. Not once had he stopped playing the instrument.</p><p>"It's something I picked up from the genuine article- the real Black Sea Sorcerers. They'll wear a glamour ring and you won't realize they're dropping a wand through the sleeve."</p><p>"You learned how to cast a glamour?"</p><p>"No, that takes entire classes- I got a ring when one of them, pissed to passing out, stumbled into our neck of the woods. I never picked up much in the way of combative magic, so I thought it'd be useful to nick before notifying the proper authorities, of course."</p><p>"He won't miss it in prison," Sirius offered, keeping an eye out as Charlie moved the stunned body to an alley.</p><p>"I doubt he ever went. If the law enforcement ever picked him up, 's the court that didn't do the job."</p><p><em>If the court didn't convict him, he might have been innocent. </em>The Azkaban escapee stared long and hard at their unconscious captive, then turned back to his partner.</p><p>"I suppose I didn't see this wizard himself, but he might have had a defense. What are we doing with this fellow?"</p><p>"I hadn't thought of it before knocking him out." Sirius sighed. "It just seemed like a good thing to do no matter what else-"</p><p>"We can't Polyjuice as him and take his place, even if we had any," he started back. He knew he was older than the Weasley, but it hardly felt like he had matured since being thrown in prison, where he was without the normal life experiences most young men had, like getting a job and starting a family. "We don't speak Arabic, and it's going to start looking suspicious if-"</p><p>"Okay, okay, we can't do that," Charlie agreed. "Without Wahde here, we don't even know that much about him. We really just need to find where exactly your brother is, so we can wait outside and stun him. What do we do after that?"</p><p>
  <em>I was hoping you wouldn't develop the ability to plan ahead so quickly.</em>
</p><p>"Regulus likely has some kind of critical piece of information. I know him, though, and he'll try to divert our attention to something else. He's always doing that, always trying to make you think you have what you want. He's a trickster with a trick behind a trick, and I doubt he was ever that loyal to our father, let alone Voldemort."</p><p>They put their captive in a leg locker and separated him from his wand, then used a sticking charm to bind his fingers to the featureless white wall behind him, searching his body quickly before waking him up.</p><p>"Found something weird-" Charlie started before Said spat some dust out of his mouth. "It's a red mark on his chest..."</p><p>"The little bastard cursed me whilst I was sleeping-"</p><p>"I thought Anthony was supposed to be... contained, somehow," Sirius said, remembering the pseudo Dark Mark that the young wizard had managed to put on Wahde's brother, or what little she told him about it.</p><p>"Him? No, he is free to walk around and whatever else- I have to do his bidding, only I cannot let speak of it to anyone or he will kill me. He can even kill me in his sleep if you can believe it."</p><p>"We know. Does he have the other man with you under his little spell?"</p><p>"No, he is the one I cannot tell- the pair of you, as it is known, you have seen it and I doubt my life will last much longer-"</p><p>"You're not the one who really interests us right now," the red-haired wizard interrupted. "If you help us, you could stand to live a fair bit longer. If we kill Anthony while you're nowhere to be seen, he can't kill you- or at least there wouldn't be a reason." <em>He'll have little choice but to believe us on that one.</em></p><p>"What's your business with Bakr of the Draa?"</p><p>"He concluded the experiments. He can cast a dark shield."</p><p>The words hung on the air a moment. From what his younger acquaintances were describing, there was work being done on a shield that could block all manners of dark curses, but he had not believed it himself.</p><p>"I don't believe it."</p><p>"The other man said the same thing to me. He has the same look about him," the Egyptian supplied, some note of interest in his voice. <em>Bakr is trying to sell Regulus a dark shield, and it's going to come at a high cost. Any kind of test to verify its effectiveness he would have to perform himself.</em></p><p>"He and I aren't from a trusting stock. We want you to go in there, lead him outside for some reason, and we'll knock him out. Once we have him, we'll be happy to rid you of Goldstein." Said scowled.</p><p>"Don't even think about telling him we're there," Charlie warned. "We're your only way of getting out of your curse. He's not going to let you go. He sees people as assets and defective assets; that's it as long as you're not a threat to him."</p><p>If the dark wizard's expression could turn more vexed, it might have. Instead he settled for agreeing and listening to what Sirius had in mind.</p><p>Hours later, the pair of them were waiting outside the house to which they had nearly followed Said, before finding a place to hide. Almost certain his brother would not assume a random black dog in the street would be someone he knew, the older wizard adopted the form of a forlorn stray, out looking for scraps now that the sun had set. It would take a long time for anyone to fool Regulus Black, who had been clever enough to disappear after the death of his master, and Sirius was none too disappointed when the Egyptian finally led him outside. The black dog padded after the two wizards, listening to the quiet conversation to determine what manner of trick he used.</p><p>"Bakr does not wish me to tell you this, but there are spells the shield cannot block. They came about far from my home, and he assumed I never heard of them."</p><p>"I see. I shall be sure to avoid being so trusting in the future." <em>Even Said can tell he's not fooled, and he hardly knows Regulus. </em>"What manner of spell, though- kill the dog behind-" A stunner interrupted the Death Eater just as he interrupted himself, but he was quick to disapparate. <em>Damn- </em>Sirius leaped out of the way of a hostile slash of wind through the air, his reflexes quick enough to see it came from the Egyptian. <em>Bakr- where is he? </em>He whipped his head around to the house whence their targets surfaced, and saw no activity. <em>Can't focus on that now.</em></p><p>"<em>Incarcarus!</em>"</p><p>He avoided another spell from their informant as Charlie hit him with the curse, binding him in place. The red-haired wizard rushed over, his teeth showing as he approached.</p><p>"Where did he go? Why did you turn on us?" the younger man demanded. "Where the hell is Goldstein?"</p><p>Said laughed before answering. <em>I'll remain a dog for a moment. I need to know how he knew.</em></p><p>"I knew Regulus was related to that man from the start. Did you believe he did not realize his brother escaped from prison?"</p><p>"You were never being controlled by Anthony, were you?"</p><p>"I transfigured my skin. I made a red mark on my chest. You assumed the rest, did you not?" He turned to the dog. "You're that man from before, aren't you? I told your brother you would be looking for him." Sirius transformed.</p><p>"Where are Bakr and Goldstein?"</p><p>"Bakr of the Draa? You are late. He left a few days ago. Perhaps if you can turn yourself into a younger man-"</p><p>"You still haven't explained why you turned on us! You're only in the same position as before!" Charlie shouted.</p><p>"You already told me I am not your target," Said managed. "I suppose Regulus fooled me as well, since he said he would help me, but perhaps he only wanted to see who was tracking him. He had prepared to leave tomorrow morning, you know." <em>Why go outside at all? Why not just warn him and then tell us he was gone?</em></p><p>"You're protecting Goldstein, then. Why?" Sirius asked.</p><p>"There was nothing to lose in giving him a chance to escape, not while Regulus was with me. I suppose I should have told him there were only two of you. Perhaps he would have been more willing to duel." <em>Regulus avoids every duel that might even be suggested. He takes our ancestor's platitude about not risking your neck to its logical extreme. </em>To some extent, he fancied himself daring, but only in the sense that he was no servant of the Dark Lord, and every Death Eater knew it. Apart from that, Sirius could see how Anthony and his brother would get on.</p><p>"That's where you're wrong. You're going to tell us where they went," he decided, pointing Dumbledore's wand. It served, but it needed to accustom itself to him, or perhaps he to it. "Charlie, keep a look out. <em>Crucio.</em>"</p><p>The Egyptian hacked a cough, caught in the middle of a breath as his body writhed in its binding.</p><p>"You can't just- just torture it out of him- he'll just lie about it to get it to stop."</p><p>"<em>Crucio</em>. That's what they do first, yes. After that, the responses start getting more interesting."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hard Targets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ron's expression revealed little of the concerns in his mind as Mafalda read out her scouting report.</p><p>"The entrance you used to get into the Ministry has been closed. There appear to be no entrances that do not require a clearance ward, and I have no idea how maintenance is being conducted."</p><p>"It's fine. Did you see anyone suspicious? Anyone that looks like a Death Eater?" <em>If they can get in, there's a hole in the system.</em></p><p>"No. I haven't seen anyone I would recognize as a Death Eater or anyone who looks like one in months."</p><p>"That's all right. We weren't expecting any." Directly after the new Minister secured his position, he announced through Scrimgeour that anyone suspected of being a servant of Voldemort would be arrested, meaning anyone he personally suspected. There was a warrant for Snape's arrest, which delighted Ron when he first heard of it, but, well, that had started the schism. "Did you see any signs of a rebellion?"</p><p>The Slytherin witch sighed, adopting a downcast expression.</p><p>"There are more Ministry employees than I can count looking for any such signs... I've been stopped three or four times by people who wanted to know if I'd seen or heard anything. I know there isn't a warrant out for my arrest, but sometimes I wish I hadn't been- never mind. I have heard rumors of rumors, but I know you don't want to chase after ghosts."</p><p>"It's all right-"</p><p>"It's not all right!" Mafalda looked down again. "Sorry... I can't imagine why I shouted. Just... please don't try to tell me things are all right. I know there's no use commenting about how bad things are, but... I'm not a child. I don't need you to actively reassure me."</p><p>
  <em>You'd be surprised.</em>
</p><p>"Tell me about those rumors, then," he offered, gesturing to a transfigured chair opposite him. "The rumors of the rumors..."</p><p>The pair of them were in a muggle's apartment. Hermione had confunded the original inhabitant, telling him he had sublet the whole thing to them for an entire wardrobe of designer suits, which she had transfigured. <em>Apparently it got easier after the first one. At least the way she told it, we weren't stealing from him since we told him they'd wear out, and she did ward them to keep them presentable for a while.</em></p><p>At the same time, though, it felt just like what Voldemort was doing with the Philosopher's Stone. <em>If he really just crashes the gold market, though... I reckon doing things like that might be our only way to survive... for the time being.</em></p><p>"Well, I was outside the theater when I heard some hushed voices just inside. One of them was telling the other about, well he heard that there was a consistency between some seemingly random uses of the mind arts against writers for the <em>Prophet.</em>" Ron had heard something of the attacks; but he could have sworn it was just an excuse to occasionally write something counter-factual. "They had to have been Ministry employees." <em>Well, that means they either know everything or the least of us all.</em></p><p>Arthur Weasley continued to work for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office despite his mounting discontent with the majority party, mostly because his skills were entirely non-transferrable. He was not a poor wizard, but it was a rare thing for an adult to recall things he learned at seventeen or before that when they had nothing to do with work. He put on a show of being harmless in part because he preferred to appear that way, but also because it was the harmless functionaries that kept their jobs the longest. <em>If he'd gotten out of it sooner, he might've done something different.</em></p><p>Ron sighed. It was not as if he could go home and give pointless commentary while a wanted man.</p><p>"Thank you. It's our only lead, so we'll look into it." He was profoundly grateful Mafalda was able to scout for him, but it was only because of how neglectful of her they had been the previous year, leaving her in the room and forgetting about her- had anyone been able to establish the most tenuous connection between her and the group, or what was left of it, she would at least be wanted for questioning.</p><p>The two of them had little else to do before going to sleep that evening, and that bit consisted of pondering past mistakes and fears of the future. His mind turned to Hannah, talking to her properly for the first time in second year, boils all over her face for some reason. It was only recently she told him that she kept wanting to hide her face after the curse came and went, and he knew why from personal experience- it was a feeling of inadequacy, a justifiable one in light of the absence of second chances the world seemed to reserve for him and his friends. If the world was like school at all, it was another one of Snape's classes.</p><p>At first light he set to work going through the mound of newspaper clippings, magical and otherwise that Mafalda gathered when she had the opportunity- <em>or nothing better to do. </em>He might have given a season pass for the Chudley Cannons for the chance to trade places with the witch, but there was nothing for it. It was all too likely that he would get caught by one of the many Hit Wizards prowling the streets in search of malcontents, to the chagrin of the recently removed Amelia Bones, and it was all too likely that the Cannons would finish at the bottom of the league, making the season pass just as worthless. He had considered different methods of disguising himself, but he was without the people he usually asked for help on those matters. <em>Well, they might've stayed around if any of them needed me for something.</em></p><p>As he sorted through the bits of information, he remembered being decent at Potions, or at least invested in it for his age, but brewing was not something he could practice with resources so limited. He had some idea that mid-century advances in Herbology made it easier for apothecaries to source their ingredients, but it was not as if they came cheaply, even with that advantage. Finished potions would cost a fortune; the last time he had seen a price tag on anything, he saw a Poultice of Permanence for ten thousand galleons. <em>No idea who could afford that apart from Voldemort.</em></p><p>The color drained from his face as he frantically looked through what he had for any recent suspicious purchases in magical materials- books, potion ingredients, wands- there was a Quibbler article about the price of wands going up, though that was due to the regulations introduced a few years ago rather than conspicuous spending clearing the shelves all of a sudden. <em>Anything like a sudden buyout of the aconite crop would give away their plans. </em>He picked up an article he had disregarded as a hit piece earlier, a case of suspected human trafficking taking place near the Malfoy properties not long after the lord of the manor disappeared. It was written like a hit piece in the sense that it was published once the writer had enough to incriminate the upper classes collectively, but the possibility of it having happened was troublesome.</p><p>"There's nothing concrete here..." he muttered to himself at length. <em>What could they want? Why would they be illegally shipping people into the country- or out? </em>Deciding there could hardly be any harm in meeting Mafalda in the theater on Alvin's Corner, since he knew she went there every day around noon, he used the color change charm to make his hair black, and carefully eliminate his freckles. It would be a sight harder to make himself shorter, but his main concern was looking human and nondescript, and it was already a challenge to get the right skin tone. It never seemed quite the same on his arms as his face, but was that not the standard?</p><p>Magical Law Enforcement had ways of looking for suspects that did not involve their basic physical description, but the average person was a different story. Were Hermione present, she would say that even the Hit Wizards would expect a Weasley to look a certain way, but he could hardly rely on that. Fortunately, changing the look of his skin gave him a natural, but not terribly attractive appearance, and he had doubts that anyone would pick him out in a lineup of wizards suspected of changing their appearances, which was a minor magical regulatory offense. He remembered Hannah asking why everyone did not simply make themselves look beautiful, and that was most of the reason. Using poultices was legal if you stayed within your same basic description, but changing your hair color, weight, height, and whatever else was tantamount to wearing a glamour at all times- Parvati knew more, but he had not seen her in months.</p><p>The streets outside were busy enough, but not absolutely packed. As the presence of law enforcement increased, it made more sense to only be out on the streets as long as necessary. No one would be inclined to wander about, especially because that never sounded good when stopped and asked about departures and destinations. <em>Small price to pay for public safety, innit? </em>He shook his head, his short black hair not moving like his long, red hair might have. It was a quick route to the theater, though he did see a tall witch with a bizarrely dazed expression, since everyone was going around her.</p><p>The theater was easy enough to enter ever since someone broke the detection wards; the back door was protected with nothing more than a locking charm. It would not make a good hideout, but as a clandestine meeting place, one could do worse. Only last week he had met with George, who had a roundabout way of telling him that working with the Order did a good job of keeping their mother from worrying herself sick. He wanted to object, he wanted to argue that the Ministry had not named the Order a criminal organization only because they could not swing it yet, but he lacked anything resembling evidence that it was part of the plan. Apparently Fred was lying about hearing from Ron once a week.</p><p>Almost as soon as he locked the door behind him and pocketed his wand, he felt himself go limp and collapse to the floor. <em>Damn. </em>The sound of a seat magically resetting itself could be heard as someone approached, though he could not see who it was.</p><p>"Ronald Weasley? Are you quite all right?" There was the sound of feet shuffling before he was released from whatever curse had hit him. "I do not believe we have met, though I have heard of you," the witch's voice continued as he gained his footing. He took stock of a pale girl with long, platinum blonde hair. <em>Could've sworn she was a Ravenclaw.</em></p><p>"Pretty sure it's all there. What are you doing here?"</p><p>"We decided this place would be open enough for people to reach us, but also relatively defensible. I care for the productions here, especially <em>Out of the Shade</em>." The strange witch took a seat, motioning for him to join. <em>Must've found some way to conceal themselves from everyone who passes through here- well, they probably know when they can expect employees and guests to show up.</em></p><p>"Who else is here with you? What side- I mean, where do you stand?" No answer came. "No need to tell me if-"</p><p>"I'm just here to help my friends," the blonde witch said. "It's not often two people put up with each other and me at the same time. I've heard that I tire people when I bring up most of my favorite things." <em>Could've sworn no one was on the run except a few of us.</em></p><p>Ron found it hard to respond. He doubted she or any of her friends were on the run, so he was still wondering what she was doing in a theater, but he expected, well, less honesty when citing a reason for her loyalty to them. At the same time, it struck a cord with him.</p><p>"Friends kind of fall apart sometimes. D'you ever run into a younger Slytherin? Might be she pops her head in here and there?" <em>Lovegood, that's her name- I'd seen her a few times before school started. Haven't spoken to her in years.</em></p><p>"I'm not always in the same room. Sometimes I clean the doxies out of the area under the stage. It's the best way to prevent a nargle infestation."</p><p>He imagined nargles, whatever they were, functioned as a natural predator for doxies. <em>Better take a different approach.</em></p><p>"Well, I'm on the run, basically. I can't go home because there's a warrant out for my arrest and it's the first place they'd look. Mafalda, the Slytherin, well, she's helping me scout the area for anything we can use against Crouch."</p><p>"Oh," Lovegood responded, her head cocked to the left. For the life of him, Ron could not determine whether that meant she understood, she wanted to know more, or she simply accepted his words for what they were. In any case, there was no sign, and no answers to questions he did not ask.</p><p>"How'd you recognize me?" he asked.</p><p>"Well, it was not for long, but I knew your younger sister." <em>Damn. </em>"She was a good friend to me... she told me all about you."</p><p>He tried to keep from showing it, but it touched a nerve that had not been touched in a while. He never envied his friends, but he could never convince himself their suffering was not something he could have prevented, had he fought harder, come up with a better plan, or even noticed something that was obvious in retrospect, and losing Ginny was the worst. He remembered swearing to never vow to protect anyone again, beating it into his own head that he was just one fledgling wizard, but he kept trying, he kept taking responsibilities- where Hermione got the idea it was some kind of virtue he had no idea.</p><p>"What did she- it doesn't matter. I already know what she-"</p><p>"She told me she was annoyed by how you were always watching out for her," the blonde witch remembered. "I feel bad sometimes I never told her to just... I don't know, let you look after her." Ron had not been under the impression the Ravenclaw felt bad about anything, felt strongly about anything- "She actually made me wish I had an elder brother... one I could take for granted and resent."</p><p>"Dammit, Lovegood, she's dead!" he shouted, rising suddenly. "She's fucking <em>dead</em> and you can't just throw it at her like that- Merlin, she couldn't have been older'n- Do you understand this concept? Or is it something you can just ponder from a thousand miles away?"</p><p>The moment he was done shouting the breath left him as he saw her eyes go to her feet.</p><p>"It's not that it's far away..." she started before getting up and turning away. "I'm sorry, somehow I'm not inclined to continue this line of conversation. I suppose it isn't fair to expect you to be patient with me; no one else is," she decided before walking off. Ron knew not to follow her, if he knew nothing else. Talking to her was strange and oddly stressful, but there was no reason to just attack her for her general way of looking at things.</p><p>As he walked off, finding Mafalda in the entrance and shielding against her knee-jerk curse, for which he might have credited her another day, he decided what was gutting about it was that the blonde witch knew she behaved oddly and expected not to be understood. To people around her she had her head in the clouds, her teachers likely thought she was some sort of eccentric genius, but at some level she was a normal girl who liked it when people were nice to her, as near as he could figure. He did wish that he were not dealing with witches exclusively, and not for the first time.</p><p>The Slytherin told him she had finished her rounds, which was good, since it was about time to go back anyway. He regretted being able to discover nothing about the uses of the mind arts, but with Lovegood and her mysterious friends, he knew of one rebel group that might have spawned the rumors. <em>If she can use some form of Legilimency, it wouldn't surprise me a bit. Reckon it makes communicating with her friends easier.</em></p><p>"What are we going to do, now that we know about them?" Mafalda asked as they got back to the apartment. She carried a bag of rice, which she might have bought by selling something that would've been harder to get for muggles, but he couldn't figure what.</p><p>"After we're done being upset, we're prob'ly going to join up. Doesn't make sense to have two separate groups. We need to coordinate."</p><p>The witch stopped where she was.</p><p>"It's not the same as it was with Hermione," he started. "Sometimes you have to go in different directions- it isn't like we'll never see her again."</p><p>He continued to feel like he was letting Terry down, the way the group split off and lost members almost immediately after gaining a few of them. Once they lost him, they lost the plan, so of course they couldn't keep Fred and George, and he should have guessed Parvati would look for Dean and his 'effective' plans, but the schism was the worst.</p><p>"How do we know we'll see her again? We haven't seen Terry or Hannah in longer..."</p><p>"We're working on that, it's just something that takes time and information we don't have-"</p><p>"We're working one end of it," Mafalda clarified. <em>Can I go an hour without arguing with a witch? </em>"I don't think the Death Eaters would transfer Terry into Ministry custody."</p><p>"I don't either. Thing is, you've got the Order, you've got Dean and Parvati, you've even got the Aurors going after them whenever they're not going after us. I don't know if they're going to rescue Terry, I don't even know if they're aware they have him, but they're not going in Hannah's direction. I thought that was why you decided to... come after me."</p><p>Presently, Ron had no idea what Hermione's objective was, which was probably for the best, since it couldn't be beaten out of him, or extracted with the mind arts, which seemed more likely. He had no notion of Occlumency, which needed to change in short order. <em>There wasn't a damn thing wrong with Hermione's original idea behind the group- it was just harder than we'd thought it would be. We couldn't go off and learn things just from reading books, especially not while keeping up with more assignments than ever before. Well, 's not like we have any assignments now.</em></p><p>Either the witch accepted his explanation or just dropped the conversation to think of more arguments, which he assumed she was doing based on their on-and-off discussions- it was fine with him as long as she kept helping him. He watched a moment as she levitated a half-cup of rice out of the bag and conjured an iron shell around it, siphoning the air out as she added water. Flattening the shell with a wave, she used some variant of the fire charm to heat the whole thing. <em>Wouldn't like to be on the inside of that thing.</em></p><p>He returned to the papers, Mafalda noticing as something caught his eye.</p><p>"There's a <em>Quibbler </em>article... older'n I thought would be relevant."</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"It's about the attacks of the <em>Prophet </em>on the rest of the publications, mostly just saying they're false because they disagree and people actually go along with it- but this description, I don't know, it's about <em>minds being changed.</em> It's bizarre."</p><p>"I didn't get the <em>Quibbler, </em>generally. My parents were always reading the competition, so that might explain why I thought it was a bit of a rag." Ron remembered the girl's parents had taken a convenient holiday, and she had opted to 'stay with friends'.</p><p>"I don't blame you. I've even met the editor, now that I think of it- shit. Shit. Shit-"</p><p>
  <em>Well, now I've half an idea of what Lovegood's been doing.</em>
</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Magical Research</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"The spirits live in a world unlike our own. Well, I would think so."</p><p>Hermione was lost in a book. From time to time, it seemed better to read things aloud so that she could hear it. She sighed.</p><p>"Their world is one of their own essence, like a wave they rise from the sea of blackness, and when crashes the wave the water returns to the dark." <em>Does it return to being the dark? Or is it part of the darkness? Where does it go? </em>As Cho passed by where she was sitting, she thought back to their conversation years ago, one of the first times they really talked. <em>I'm holding onto my own way of understanding things. There are some things I can break down and understand better from the bottom up, but magic seems to be governed by principles I cannot understand. </em>She reminded herself also that it was unlikely they would be fully understood for a long time, since more of an emphasis had been placed on gaining a functional understanding of magic, there was even support in opinion columns for making the new school more focused on 'real world application', as it were. She could tell herself the support was faked, a way of reducing the actual amount of magical knowledge among the students to something the Ministry could control, but she doubted it had to be. According to Fred, speaking for his father, most Ministry employees could not cast a shield charm, which at least made sense, because her own parents could not remember what they learned in secondary school.</p><p>To make matters worse, she was on her own and had a war to fight, meaning she had to commit the same crime against the expansion of knowledge by studying hard magic for practical use. She had already decided it was just impossible for her to answer the big questions, not without Terry, not in time to produce anything resembling results.</p><p>"Are you reading Terry's book?" Cho asked, sitting down across from her at a low table. Her parents had agreed to hide Hermione in their home, provided she gave no sign. Accustomed to holing up in the library, it was no herculean feat.</p><p>"The one he checked out, not the one he wrote himself," she answered. "I should have enough of what he understood in my head by the time I finish this book. Does it make any sense to you?" The other Ravenclaw took the book and read the section of the introduction she had been going over for the twelfth time. The truth was, she had already forced her eyes to pass over every word in the text, which was mercifully short, but a true understanding of the ideas conveyed escaped her.</p><p>"I do not think it is written in code," the witch said. "I do not think that anyone would attempt to disguise the meaning to such an extent, based on what it says."</p><p>Hermione stared in a different direction. Cho's way of speaking seemed to change based on context. Because the war continued for longer than her parents could bear, she had actually spent some of her earliest years in Shanghai, though a few years before she started at Hogwarts they decided to return. Whatever the reasons were, the result was that she could talk conversationally with the rest of the girls at school, but she stepped right into an accent every time she was discussing something serious. It was a bit jarring, actually; Hermione wondered if Professor Flitwick ever heard the voice she used around Romilda Vane and her crowd.</p><p>Seeing her friend was content to read without providing any further audible response, she looked over the other materials she happened to have. She knew Ron had chosen Apparation for himself, since there was little to no reading material, but without him around she was going to have to learn it herself. <em>On second thought, learning to make portkeys might actually be more useful, since I know nothing of anti-portkey warding, if it exists.</em></p><p>Days earlier she had a polite conversation with the Chang family over a table with a magically revolving central platform, that seemed to present those seated around it with whatever they wanted. Apparently, Cho's proper name was Zhāng Qiū, written as 張秋 in the Mandarin, and it would be best to practice with as many known terms as possible. Every Chinese word to which they introduced her she knew she would at least remember, though it was a bit difficult to get the words out properly. Their friends in Shanghai were a bit baffled at the fact they could understand people from as far from Britain as New Zealand, assuming the dialect would be virtually incomprehensible, even with the most rigorous grammatical training. What she was meant to put together was that the language relied on pronunciation to be understood at all, which is why dialects were more of an obstacle in the central kingdom.</p><p>Hermione sighed and guessed there would be a book on it. She had heard of magical processes of learning languages.</p><p>"How did you decide on the name Cho?" she had asked one day after the initial conversation.</p><p>"It is the Japanese word for butterfly. I always liked it."</p><p>"Oh, I see. Do you know a lot of Japanese words?" she asked, pouring over a book.</p><p>"My mother is half Japanese."</p><p>"Is that a common thing?" she asked, having some idea to the contrary. Oddly enough, Cho developed a vexed expression, which seemed to just vanish as she looked over.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"There were unfortunate circumstances," the other Ravenclaw said before leaving the room.</p><p>It had been a few weeks since then, and if the mother and father learned what she had asked, she would understand being given the cold shoulder, having beaten herself in the head with a history book. She could hardly imagine the stares Cho's mother, and probably even her father had to endure before leaving for the United Kingdom, and again when they went back. Going back in the early eighties meant not having another child, but they might have made peace with that.</p><p>Hermione eventually decided to go to her friend to apologize for asking, but she actually smiled and said after the first few days it was fun watching her squirm.</p><p><em>In my own defense, I was waiting to see if it would be better to act like I had no idea. </em>She sighed, concluding it would not be the last time she unintentionally offended someone, and it definitely was not the first.</p><p>Cho got back to her about the book, telling her that it seemed to be written to mean what it said, which confused her more than anything else could have. More than once she had already considered the possibility the information was false; it was only for trust in her friend's judgement that she kept reading it at all.</p><p>"It's the concepts themselves, then. They seem so- I don't know, bizarre. It seems like most of what is being suggested is impossible, even with magic. I was hoping that the people who wrote this, the <em>machi</em>, just had a different way of understanding the same theory, but if this is all true, the theories contradict each other, unless there are variables of which I'm not aware." She had to leave open the possibility that different cultures had theories that only applied in specific regions of the planet, or when performed by people from those cultures, but Cho had already disproven both of those notions. As Hermione understood it, immigration was actually a rare thing in the magical world, primarily because the push factor of extreme poverty essentially did not exist.</p><p>"Perhaps what you need is more theories, and not fewer," the other Ravenclaw suggested. "Read the Chinese theories of magic. Read the Russian theories. Where do they agree? Where do they disagree? Perhaps you will see past the difference." She set the book down as she spoke. "I do not understand these concepts either, but perhaps I have the same problem."</p><p>The brunette witch blew a hair out of her face. <em>I could cut it, I suppose, but I doubt my friends would recognize me. Maybe I could get a wave.</em></p><p>"It's the old problem of needing to research everything else before the first thing starts to make sense, then," she said, her expression unchanged. <em>There are magical ways of learning languages, but none for learning magic. Well, languages might be more standardized.</em></p><p>Hermione picked up an enchanted Chinese book, one of the approaches for learning the language, or how to read it, at least. The caster would learn how to enchant a book written in the desired language, and the enchanted text would shelve the reader's knowledge of how to read other languages, taking what was written for what it was, without assumptions about structure or the way words were meant to sound. Reading like this had already allowed her to peruse some simple texts in Mandarin, though they had nothing to do with magical theory and she had a ways to go before being able to read anything that complex.</p><p>With her parents practicing dentistry in Australia, she was glad when the Changs stated that they enjoyed having her over, and she believed them. They seemed to love picking her brain about the Philosopher's Stone and the monster of the Chamber of Secrets, both of which they insisted were Chinese in origin. Having read much of what the library had to offer regarding Flamel and the Stone, she was quite certain the earliest conception of it came from Egypt or possibly the Middle East, though the alchemist himself deserved no small amount of credit. Knowing little of magical creatures, she did not deny the assertion that basilisks were from China. It was pleasant talking to them; they even enjoyed hearing about British magical theory, despite how much they would have heard from their daughter.</p><p>"Magic is different in China," Cho's father explained, hearing her reach the end of what she knew on warding, or what felt like it. "I am what you would call a Squib. I did not know my father, or my mother, but I always knew they were capable of miracles. I was on a farm as far back as I can remember. A sparrow told me my parents sent him, and they loved me." She found herself wondering if it was a patronus, but she reminded herself there were a few other explanations, and that was only her understanding of magic.</p><p>"So can people bestow speaking abilities on animals?" Hermione asked, trying to think of something out of the box.</p><p>"If you are skilled. Most people are not." <em>Well, that's a bit familiar. </em>From what she had heard, it was mostly the Cantonese who were still casting their own spells. It was not as if people had no interest in learning magic, but if they did it was only one, highly specific branch, and only with approval from the Ministers of the Imperial Palace. It seemed despotic to her, but as always there were two sides to everything. In the last thousand years, the entire country, or almost all of it, had been placed under the authority of Fa to engender magical properties to everyday objects, which would not be revealed if a normal person touched them, as was the case with warding. Chinese wizards experienced much the same magically enhanced standard of living as any other, without ever casting spells not specifically pertinent to their employment. Though the Changs had not told her, she picked up on the implication that most of them thought of other magical societies as barbaric, or quaint if not in so many words. <em>We lived in a school with magical plumbing, which would have been a pain to manage by casting spells all the time. I doubt many people would take much pride in knowing how to move sewage through pipes.</em></p><p>At the same time, it was a circumstance either the Death Eaters or the Department would appreciate once one of them had total control of the state.</p><p><em>At that point they could forget about wand warding; they could just snap them wholesale. </em>It was a concerning prospect, but it would likely take years to implement, and not only because of all the layers of wards and enchantments they would need to lay all over the country. <em>They've laid some of the groundwork with the Edict and the regulations on wand sales, but they'll need propaganda, years of it most likely, to convince people that it's necessary to some end other than tightening the chains around their necks.</em></p><p>Even more so than discussing what she learned in school, Cho's parents were interested to hear her recount her adventures. Remembering not to mislead them with any assumptions of her own, second year was a particular challenge, having been petrified for much of it. The second-hand accounts confused them somewhat, since she could not answer questions about them, but they found the whole thing rather disturbing. The older witch to the left of Cho asked her what it was like waking up.</p><p>"Well, it was weird, since there wasn't any one thing that changed, it was a lot of things. We went from all being afraid of Voldemort to being at each other's throats. Two teachers were dead, three students escaped, and there were so many injured we were lucky the Death Eaters didn't have the school. There was also the Heir of Slytherin, who realized his powers and got away with attacking several students with the basilisk. That was most likely a large part of why no one trusted the school after that."</p><p>She had expected her friend had been honest with her parents, since they would be understanding of her need to be at school, but it appeared as the conversation wore on, Cho had only told them a bit of what went on every year, or perhaps she had made it seem less serious than it was. The only thing she could get from their expressions was deep concern. <em>Well, they can't take her out of Hogwarts now.</em></p><p>The summer had been interesting to say the least, and filled with practice with Ron and Mafalda after Parvati disappeared one morning, and around then Hermione realized how desperate their situation was. If they lacked a chance in hell without a witch who knew something about illusion magic, they needed to rethink their strategy. It was not so simple as it seemed at the time, but whatever else was at stake, they needed to learn if they were to have any hope at all. <em>Cho had a way out and I took it. I cannot be proud of the way we left things, but I haven't regretted it.</em></p><p>As they caught her lost in thought again, the Changs suggested that she get ready for school.</p><p>"Your parents are nice people," she said to Cho, not for the first time.</p><p>Cho was folding clothes for her first trunk as she responded, to the effect that she knew. Her parents strongly encouraged her, to put it nicely, but she was never under any illusion that they only valued her as a consequence of academic achievement. Hermione noticed she was packing a whole suitcase with hair and skin products, magical and mundane. The pair of them had been around the market, but she only bought a few things. <em>I shouldn't overhaul my whole life making myself look better. It's not as if there's anyone...</em></p><p>"Oh, did you get everything?" she asked, eliciting a brief glare. "There might have been a stall somewhere in the dark alley- what was it called again?"</p><p>She could barely hear her friend's response as she stepped into the bathroom, but suffice to say, it was less than polite. Theirs was nothing like the ribbing between Ron and his brothers, but it was pleasant to be able to discuss something less serious and more so just to be less serious around someone her age. It seemed contrary to what she would have expected as a child, that she would keep important matters from adults and never have time to discuss anything she wanted with contemporaries, but her life had a way of proving her expectations wrong.</p><p>All the same, plans being ruined from time to time did not point to a wholesale futility of the concept of planning.</p><p>Presently, she needed to work with Cho and anyone else they could trust to come up with a foolproof way of killing Voldemort, the difficulty in getting to him notwithstanding. As a conversation point, Malfoy had revealed to Neville that his master seemed to have a curse, ward, or enchantment for every occasion; his lungs would even fill themselves with air if need be. <em>And if Neville had cut him off in third year, like we suggested, we would never have known about it. </em>What they needed was something he could not possibly expect or prevent, which was why Terry had been leaning toward spirit magic. Her fellow Ravenclaw considered the plan backward, at least chronologically, but in her heart Hermione knew it was more important.</p><p>A weapon, spell, or even some sort of magical creature that could kill Voldemort would prove that he was only a man, beyond a shadow of a doubt.</p><p>With returning to Hogwarts out of the question, she had looked into the new school, seeing how many of their old teachers had agreed to take positions in it. Britain had a few smaller magical schools, and any one of them could likely name their salaries wherever they went, but there were those who wanted to stay with the students. A new regime meant nothing to a teacher except new material, mostly in History of Magic, which she doubted Professor Binns would be leading. As a ghost, he was bound to the ruin of Hogwarts, and he taught from memory, to the increasing chagrin of the authors of the new books. Worse yet, there were those loyal to Dumbledore, who would be arrested for so much as saying something nice about him, or they would be once Crouch had reappointed the rest of the key officials. <em>Really, though, even if we could permanently disguise ourselves well enough to fool the warding and the background checks, the curriculum there would be useless. Outside of that school, we would still have a chance of getting caught, and the Ministry would probably put the other schools under their jurisdiction on a leash, so our ability to learn would be even more limited.</em></p><p>Consequently, she and Cho decided to go to China.</p><p>They were going to be transported to school by a system functionally similar to the Floo Network, but theoretically similar to a portkey, with a pair of identical enchantments momentarily linking two points, making their square boundaries lie on top of each other, and there was a snapping sensation as the union of the two places... was no more. It was a relatively recent wonder of magical theory, and she wished she could study it more, but she never saw a book about it in Hogwarts, not in all her time there. With their school equipment purchased, they donned their uniforms, which felt weird for Hermione. While the concept of a black skirt and a white shirt were familiar, and standard for prep schools, they also had a red cloak with the large sleeves, and they were required to wear an amulet where it could be seen at all times.</p><p>As her friend explained, it would keep her from casting spells until a teacher disabled the effect for class, which she found despotic. Cho smiled.</p><p>"Your Chinese is getting better." <em>We were just talking in- </em>"When you told me you did not want to live under Crouch, I understood. When you said you would come with me, I said the Imperial Ministers are worse."</p><p>As little as she liked it, disagreement was mostly impossible. The magical government of China had already achieved more or less everything that was still in its infancy in Britain. It had its advantages, to be sure. There had not been a Secrecy violation in at least twenty years. <em>The Cultural Revolution was possibly the worst thing to ever happen to China, magical or otherwise. </em>She could almost hear blood purists the world over giving a disdainful sigh for not taking Secrecy seriously enough, but the issue was still more complicated than they made it out to be.</p><p>"Well, they're not actively trying to kill me. Even if the Ministry knew of my presence here, they most likely would not come after me."</p><p>Cho nodded in understanding before adding, as a final note, that in case she wanted to know, many of the boys would be staring at her.</p><p>Hermione scowled and muttered back that she would be more than happy to part with a few of them.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Perks of Being a Werewolf</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hannah hid in the Trophy Room.</p><p>She knew what she was experiencing was not a real dream, but it definitely seemed like a dream. Time moved as quickly as her thoughts, and false memories were filling in the gaps in her understanding to keep her from realizing the world around her was not real, which would usually wake her up. At the same time, even with her sense of the passage of time shattered, she knew she had lived in the dream longer than she could have possibly been asleep, so either she was permanently sedated, or in some kind of bizarre mental prison.</p><p>The Hufflepuff had never been in the Trophy Room in her life, and she predicted how she would imagine it as she had the idea of going there, and as she arrived it was exactly as she predicted- all the trophies were gold, from all the inter-school competitions Hogwarts had won in her countless years of operation. They were stacked from floor to ceiling, on top of and inside each other, each shining just as brightly as they day on which they were awarded. It was a technically plausible description of the Trophy Room, and she was already experiencing the false memories of having seen it all before, even having won a few of the trophies herself, but some outside force was keeping her asleep, or otherwise trapped, so her logical process of figuring out the non-reality around her was allowed to continue longer than normal.</p><p>"I should really thank Hermione and Terry. Before meeting them, I would never have realized." Thinking of her friends, she hoped they were all right somewhere.</p><p>The door opened. It was Justin.</p><p>"Hi, Hannah, what are you doing here?"</p><p>She stared back. <em>Do I pretend not to realize that this is not real? No, I am literally crouching in the corner. They know I'm hiding, I would think.</em></p><p>"Hi, Justin."</p><p>The wizard's face changed. All at once he was a much older man.</p><p>"You are not a liar, Miss Abbott, and yet your mind is so hard for us to read." He conjured a chair out of nothing and sat before her. "Yes, maybe they were wrong- might be a direct approach is best. Can always erase your recent memory if it doesn't work." He cleared his throat. "Miss Abbott, for the past eight weeks or so, can't remember how long it is, the Department of Mysteries has been attempting to get any kind of relevant information out of your skull. At first we couldn't figure out the problem. We tried just asking- weren't expecting much, mind. We tried Legilimency, even had the best man for the job- best we could spare, anyway, and we got nothing, well, nothing we needed. They saw some standard school shite, loads from you as a wee lass, enough to convince all the tossers in the Ministry proper there wasn't anything in there we needed."</p><p>"Well-"</p><p>"It was an Inspector who figured it out. See, when we arrested you, we put you in a cell that'd hold your kind, but basically, you were the lowest on a long list o' priorities, ken?"</p><p>"Aye," she muttered. She had some vague notion of turning into a werewolf before being taken in, now that he was mentioning it, but though there was nothing after that, she knew the Ministry had to have been in a tumult with the surprise appointment, not to mention the changes Crouch promised right out of the gates. <em>What's one little witch in a cell, compared to all that? That they have me here means they think I know where my friends went. They were reasonably confident they could have caught them without my help, but they must have escaped in the chaos. It would have been ideal for them to leave in different directions, trusting each other to arrive at a prearranged meeting point.</em></p><p>Hannah reminded herself the reason they wanted her for questioning was also the reason she was still alive.</p><p>"Anyway, we weren't worried about you getting your head back; there wasn't reason to believe you could apparate, or really do anything else so it had to have been at least a day or so before anyone came back to take your wand. Bode said he found you sitting in the corner, your wand and a couple other things a few feet away."</p><p>The Hufflepuff witch was momentarily annoyed with herself, giving up so easily.</p><p>"Well, that should have made me look innocent, but we're still here, aren't we?"</p><p>The wizard across from her laughed.</p><p>"We always mix up what's supposed to make you look innocent or guilty. Ever heard of a security camera?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Couldn't tell you exactly how they work, but the muggles never know whether to look at them or not. You had us fooled a tick, but you only gave all that up because you were sitting on an Occlumency book. Ended up with a few days with nothing to do but read it; the glaikits that work here didn't even know you had it on you when they started asking questions."</p><p>"Don't you work here?" she asked, thinking of some way to get away from the line of conversation and her increasing sense of dread.</p><p>"Aye, that I do, and they never figured me for anythin' more than a lackey of theirs. Don't worry, lass, there's no one listening to us." <em>He hasn't admitted to anything serious. </em>"I suppose, bein' fair and all, they did impress me by agreeing with the purists on sticking it to wolfies like you. I'd thought they'd take the opposite position just to be opposite, but the plan is to treat dissenters just like werewolves, so they're really thinking ahead. What was the old expression? The one about not standing up for other sorts?"</p><p>"I didn't stand up for the... werewolves, so they didn't stand up for me."</p><p>
  <em>Their goal was to set a precedent. Werewolves are mostly human, so any treatment justified on us is already mostly justified on everyone else.</em>
</p><p>"Right, right... only problem I ever had with it was- when have wolfies ever stood up for anyone?"</p><p>"I stood up for Flora Carrow," she muttered indistinctly, though she understood what he was saying. The wizard heard her, laughing again.</p><p>"Aye, yeh did, I remember that. We were meant to be defending her too, though it really wouldn't have been a problem if her school let her go, pretty sure the other dobbers wanted her dead, but you defended her!" It seemed he had the decorum not to slap his knee. "A fat lot of good that did you, but it was a real kink for the Department's enchantments."</p><p>"You're a Death Eater, aren't you?"</p><p>"Not in so many words. I killed enough people to get a shiny mask, but there was never any record of my working with the Dark Lord. I'm not from any ancient line, not that I know anyway- short of it is I was a murderer and Evan was a rapist, Evan Rosier, you wouldn' remember him. We found a cursed key in our cell during old Greyback's trial, and we walked right out. Had to at least suspect there was a catch, but it was better than Azkaban." He stared off into space. "Point is, I'm no one Malfoy or Selwyn would trust, and Lord Voldemort doesn't even tell them anything. After the war there was a record of being arrested, but we were never tried, so some quill-twiddler assumed the prosecutor dropped the case and stamped us both as 'released, no charge, no warrant'. I got a job in Dangerous Magical Creatures as I got the knack for it and you get to kill things, then the Dark Lord's back and I find another damn cursed key in the broom closet the Department calls my office. Not five minutes later someone from Mysteries comes in asking about a specialist; don't think I didn't put it together. Last three years I've been helping them track wolfie packs, but I've been warning Greyback whenever they're about to strike. He's got them all convinced his master knows everything, and the Department doesn't suspect me one bit- always get the wolves to act surprised, and they don't think I'm clever enough to be fooling them."</p><p>"That's why they asked you to interrogate the werewolf." <em>He probably isn't clever enough to be fooling them. It's possible they suspect him more than he realizes, but he could have had someone erase or modify his memories of being a Death Eater in the past.</em></p><p>"That's the short of it. A few of the Unspeakables had been holding out hope they could past your deflectors if they stuck you in a Pensieve while in your wolf form. Might be I suggested something along those lines. Thing is, you don't remember anything of being a lass, do you?"</p><p>Hannah decided the question was rhetorical. It was as if she had two minds; one asleep while the other was awake. It seemed like it would actually be easier to prey on her resting mind, but she could have trained her mental shields to wake her up if someone tried to use Legilimency while she was asleep. <em>It would not work were I sedated... or a werewolf. </em>Fortunately, it seemed being a werewolf made her other mind inaccessible; else a werewolf in the past might have been calmed by the use of the mind arts.</p><p>"So even you have had difficulties getting into my head."</p><p>"Well aren't you a clever wolfie? Tell me, what am I doing here?"</p><p>"You're trying to see if you can get bits and pieces of it out of me while talking." The wizard waved a hand at the idea.</p><p>"Wouldn't really give us good intel. Reason I told you me whole life story is so you'll know where I stand on it. I don't have any particular interest in prying through your head; I'd really rather you just told me, and I'd make sure you got out. If you hurry, you might see your little friends before we get there."</p><p>Hannah took the implication that the Department would not let her out even if she told them everything; if anything she would be transferred to wherever they were keeping prisoners, after her trial, if she had one. To crack down on mostly imaginary werewolf offenses, several Wizengamot decisions separately concluded that unregistered werewolves did not require litigation, since the Ministry necessarily had proof that they were criminals.</p><p>"I'd rather die." <em>My life was forfeit when I was captured. There's still a chance they won't actually-</em></p><p>"That's what I thought you'd say, seeing as you wouldn't have much longer of a life helping me. Can't really offer much else except if you join the side of the Death Eaters. At the very least we'd have to erase a lot of memories out of the mudblood, but if you survive the war we'd have no further problem with you.</p><p>"I'd rather die."</p><p>"Ah, well, it made more sense to offer than not offer. Suppose you tell me where your friends are, I'll notify probably Nott or Gibbon, and we'll keep them prisoner until they let you out." <em>They're not going to let me out. If they completely give up on finding my friends, they'll kill me. </em>There was also the fact she had no reason to trust a servant of Voldemort.</p><p>"I'd rather die."</p><p>"Well, thought you might say that. Not much of a life, being trapped in a basement somewhere. Unfortunately, the Department would lose a little support from upstairs if they found you dead down here, and it'd get back to me, so I can't swing it."</p><p>"I don't know where my friends are. I actually don't know; I'm not hiding it or anything," she explained, tired. "There's no point to keeping me here. There's no point to keeping me alive." <em>I can't kill myself in my sleep. If they ever let me wake up I imagine I can't even hang myself; I'm not as strong while not in my beast form, but I would still be immune to most things.</em></p><p>She tried to picture her friends going on without her.</p><p>Hermione and Terry would have more work to do, more books to read by themselves. Ron would be looking for more allies, and sooner or later, either when he was over losing her, or when he was too lonely to care anymore, would find a new girl. <em>No, he would feel too guilty. He would carry a torch for me until he died.</em></p><p>She realized that she was crying and her friends were looking for her.</p><p>"See, I'm not meant to believe you when you say that."</p><p>"I know. Don't believe me, then," she spat. <em>I cannot die. I cannot... </em>"You'll just have to come up with something else."</p><p>There was a long stare that passed between them. Silently, Hannah guessed that her tears did not make her deathwishes more convincing, possibly because the Death Eater could not distinguish emotions. <em>It would explain why he became a murderer... not that it would be justifiable. </em>Somewhere her Ravenclaw friends were cautioning her for her lack of evidence, but she ignored their voices.</p><p>"That wouldn't be a problem for Bellatrix," the wizard said, a resigned look on his face. "She'd have you screaming every secret you know." <em>If I were awake, I could at least tell the Department that this man was working with Voldemort... but if this gamble of his doesn't work, he'll just use a memory charm.</em></p><p>"You haven't tried beating it out of me?"</p><p>"It's the ideology; don't ask me why they haven't gotten physical. I don't enjoy it as much as the Lestranges or Evan might have, when he was alive. I really only get off killing, and it only lasts a moment, but there's always more people to kill."</p><p>"You used Evan to torture people?"</p><p>"Mostly witches, you get the idea. Alastor Moody killed him as the war was dying down. A damn shame, that, he and I'd been through a lot, but I guess he felt like dying in battle. Well, that or they lied about it, but I can't figure out why they would." The dark wizard was staring off into space again, chuckling slightly. "Pity he's not here now. He'd know just what to do with you."</p><p>"I'm sure," she spat, her voice hiding her fear. <em>At least it's not something he really wants... </em>Hannah might have laughed at the notion of being glad the Death Eater would rather kill her than anything else, but if she were honest with herself, she still did not want to die. She was also nearly sick at the thought of the dark wizards using such methods to get information, that the likes of Malfoy would consider them right and necessary for the sake of the magical world. "But here you are; you can't kill me, and as long as your surrounded by Department employees you can't kill anyone. So you are talking to me face to face, because nothing else has worked... and you're running out of time." The last bit was a guess, a gamble, but there was a chance it would pay off.</p><p>"I have time, lass, I just don't have a lot of patience. The Dark Lord can give me a direct order and he can very well expect me to follow it, but he's never thought I'd be in a prison the rest of my life, and that's what this job is. Has to be some kind of end, or he doesn't expect me to do it, ken?" <em>That's why he started offering deals. The problem is, I don't have anything the Ministry wants.</em></p><p>"I'll make an unbreakable vow," she offered, the idea coming to her before she could think it over. "If you get me out of here, I'll tell you something good enough for the Department to think you had it out of me against my will."</p><p>"What do the Death Eaters get out of-"</p><p>"They aren't here. This is a deal between us." The Hufflepuff thought a moment. "I suppose, getting the suspicion off you is going to help them because you can keep feeding them information." A grin formed on the wizard's face.</p><p>"It's a deal, then. I've wanted to be off this assignment." If he were hoping to be keeping the ambiguity in her words from her, his hope was misplaced, but he said nothing more before disappearing.</p><p>
  <em>I can't relax yet. I have to assume I'm being watched by someone else, especially if I wake up.</em>
</p><p>Hannah became aware of her body a moment before her eyes opened. She fought off the mental haze as she tried to get her bearings. <em>Well, I'm still in my clothes, at least, but I'm filthy. </em>Imagining for a moment being magically disrobed and bathed before being covered up again, she decided the notion was somewhat better than her captors doing everything by hand, but if they... looked, then she would rather be unwashed. She reminded herself that Azkaban prisoners went without bathing, and infection rarely got them before the dementors. <em>I suppose that is another reason to count myself lucky. Why then, I wonder, do I not feel lucky?</em></p><p>Her sarcastic thoughts aside, she made sure her mental shielding was in place before thinking about what to tell the Death Eater. She had more than a few private memories that would make things convincing, loath though she was to share as much as one of them, to say nothing of the strategic disadvantage in letting both of their enemies know how much she meant to Ron, if she could figure it out herself. Her mother had advised her that most boys would probably not realize the need to feel special, which was a need to feel something, but a decidedly fair one.</p><p>She might have laughed if she were not worried about breaking her concentration, but it was not as if her mother only ever talked about boys with her. Verna Abbott was a romantic, to be sure, but was capable of asking about practical things, though only to make sure her daughter was doing as well academically as she normally did. On the third or fourth time she found Hannah sobbing about being a werewolf, she said that there was no reason to lose heart at all, as her abilities were all in order and if her worst problem was that wizards had to avoid her once every lunar cycle, that was within expectations and there were worse things.</p><p>It was an uncommon parenting decision, scolding a crying teenager, but her mother placed little enough stock in the normal way of doing things.</p><p>"It won't be long before he's back. I need to figure out what I tell him, and I need to believe I can get out," she decided, staring down at her thin form. <em>I gave up too easily... I don't think anyone would have blamed me, but... I just can't give up. Everyone is still out there looking for me, and if I died, it would not make them any better off. </em>Hannah tried to puzzle out what she was feeling; it seemed easy to see how she would want to die and inconceivable at the same time. She felt rushes of despair and longing, perhaps her waking mind adjusting itself after a long slumber. <em>That's right... when I dream, I am alone. All my thoughts are subconscious, at least they would be normally...</em></p><p>Light filled the cell as she was trying to organize her thoughts.</p><p>"Morning, princess," a voice said as she blinked, her hands in front of her face. "Did Macnair get through to you? He came over a minute ago saying he was letting you think about his offer. I thought it was a bit off myself, since we already came up with so many deals."</p><p>She was lost in thought as she tried to remember hearing the Department employee's voice. <em>I have to make a decision. I have to take a chance either way.</em></p><p>"Macnair is a Death Eater," she said. "He's probably ready for me to tell you that, but go into the records of when he and Evan Rosier were arrested. He wasn't released, someone helped him to escape-"</p><p>The light dimmed down and the face of the witch she was sure to be the leader of the investigation could be seen.</p><p>"We shall consider your words carefully, Miss Abbott. Do not think you have cleared yourself of suspicion."</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Among the Rabble</h2></a>
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      <p>For a learning institution of such repute, Durmstrang had its share of substandard duelists, and Draco had more reason to suspect being poisoned than losing in an encounter, unless the odds were absurd. With the vassals he had taken with him, it was surprisingly easy to defeat most foes, who seemed accustomed to raising physical shields where a magical shield would be faster, though this could be attributed to the practice of dark magic, against which standard shields rarely functioned. The summer had afforded him an opportunity to learn a 'dark shield' as it were from Lestrange and Travers, who saw him as a nephew, if not by blood. In principle it was simple; it essentially fueled itself on his own pride, but the Death Eaters had nodded and told him more practice was required after his third or fourth attempt.</p>
      <p>He lacked a taster for his food, and since Padma wrote him more often than he liked, he felt a ghostwriter would be a wise investment as well, but his attempts to expand control were mostly thwarted by Evan's following. It was true that the Heir lacked anyone who could be called friends, but he was perfectly non-discriminatory with the people he allowed to serve him, and he was competing for the same potential recruits. Draco had encouraged his vassals to build their own network, with the exception of Bole, who maintained a small contingent of second and third years in Britain through an old Quidditch mate. While the knight of one of his vassals would be sufficiently expendable for menial tasks, the younger students of Durmstrang were either entirely opposed to subservience or more inclined to serve Evan, to say nothing of the local powerhouses. Viktor Krum had moved on from the institution, having changed his plans with the return of Voldemort, according to a teacher, though he left a gap a few others filled. Kamotsky was a genetic aberration, perhaps an heir to an ancient line of his own, and a true terror in duels. Solitary as he was hench, he did not speak unless directed in class; he did not have so much of a following as those who were afraid of him. Tõnisson and Lysenko were natural enemies, the first a separatist insisting on classes and leadership being divided by national blood, and the second a mudblood of the worst kind, spreading the idea that magic came from nowhere.</p>
      <p><em>I should not be surprised to find the idea exists outside of Britain. It is not as if we invented adultery. Even if we had, Tõnisson has outstripped us all in that regard. </em>He had it out of a younger student that the young man regularly, contrary to the rules and what everyone else thought possible, visited the girls' tower, where he was welcome. It was interesting conceptually, if the rumor had any truth to it, but Draco had no particular desire to visit, since he doubted his usual charms would register with the witches any better than they had with the wizards. Having looked for something resembling an aristocracy, it seemed many of them had been killed or driven off decades ago, so his birth mostly counted for nothing.</p>
      <p>
        <em>No matter. In first year I had a naive determination to prove myself without it.</em>
      </p>
      <p>Not for the first time, however, those days seemed a lifetime ago.</p>
      <p>As he navigated the classes he managed to reach the rank of oak, which was above birch, but below cherry, holly, pine, willow, poplar, alder, and ash. Wandlore was something of a specialty for Austrians, who divided themselves between Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, so he would ask one of them if he ever cared to know what the order of the ranks represented. The stress of staying on top of everything, having built so much of his knowledge at Hogwarts and planned so far ahead on continuing there, had him missing Longbottom more than expected, but he had no earthly idea where he could have gone. It was fortunate he took his vassals with him, as he truly had no one else, but they needed him in the new environment as much, if not more. They were unable to attend illicit dueling practice after classes because they had to study with his resources to begin to get a grasp of the language, and were responding to his direction with less of a mischievous glimmer in the eye. <em>Merlin, they really are desperate.</em></p>
      <p>"Our first target is Tõnisson," he explained to Goyle, Nott, Derrick, and Bole. "Davis is in an ideal position, but we cannot assume she can defeat him on her own."</p>
      <p>"She'll have Bulstrode."</p>
      <p>"I know that, Goyle; I did not forget she existed entirely. I discounted her participation because our target will want nothing to do with her." The former Beaters seemed to agree with his assessment.</p>
      <p>"Why have we condemned Tõnisson and not Lysenko? His designs and machinations-" Nott started.</p>
      <p>"The latter has his own following, but they would not join us if we were to defeat him," Draco responded. "Rather, it would be better to leave them as a known adversary. Enemies of theirs will either join us or Evan."</p>
      <p>There was a pause.</p>
      <p>"I really hate to suggest it," Bole started. "But what if we were to join Evan?"</p>
      <p>"He is not the Dark Lord. We do not need to stay close to him to discover his weaknesses; he has the same as any other wizard. He will hardly kill us for not joining-"</p>
      <p>"Isn't that a reason to help him, though?" Derrick asked. "He might be just what we need to get rid of our master."</p>
      <p>"That would be trading one master for another," Draco sighed. "The Heir has no reason to rid us of the Lord Voldemort, nor has he reason to dispose of his apprentice. His- <em>fairness, </em>I suppose, is a weakness for which he and his followers will suffer. Leaving Lysenko alive in the long term will prove a fatal error, with all the eyes on him and those who support him." He gave a disdainful sigh. "Lastly, were I to subjugate myself to Evan, where would that put all of you? Where would it put those loyal to you?"</p>
      <p>The argument seemed to quiet the vassals for a moment, but there were gaping holes in it. The war was a truly desperate effort, with all of the Death Eaters but one, to his knowledge, having been driven from Britain. Joining under the banner of the Heir would be a tolerable alternative to utter defeat, and he seemed to care little for the ranking of those who supported him, but the young wizard was not a pure blood, and he was not a blood purist. <em>Creevey is a rare breed. Most will ally themselves with others of their same blood quantum, though the half-bloods have a choice. </em>He had some interest in whether Davis was still enamored with Evan, but as he was oddly soft-spoken about witches, the scion of House Malfoy doubted he was that invested in continuing his line.</p>
      <p>A strike would be too direct, and likely to fail with all of their target's supporters to consider. A regular Casanova, merely being around him made a young wizard substantially more interesting to a young witch, as his cult of personality was an exclusive group. It was not uncommon for him to bring a friend on his trips to the girls' tower, which he characterized as perfectly impromptu, but with all the infighting that went on between his followers for the distinction, the truth could not be further away.</p>
      <p>"We need to know who will be selected for the next little soiree," he decided at length. "He will be quite willing to help us, or at least look the other way." As he spoke it appeared Nott was plotting something, though that was nothing unusual. "Bole, what do we have from the island?"</p>
      <p>"They haven't started school yet." <em>There's more that's going on there than just school- </em>"Crouch isn't going round the bend with all the policy changes just yet. He doesn't want the majority to guess his intentions."</p>
      <p>Draco's eyebrows raised momentarily at the observation. It was insightful for its source.</p>
      <p>"Derrick?" He had asked the other Beater to keep up with Parkinson.</p>
      <p>"Our inside witch is mostly watching social stuff. It's not terribly interesting."</p>
      <p>"Perhaps, but if she felt the need to report it, we might as well hear it."</p>
      <p>"Well, her father's an old friend of ours, so he's had to relocate to France; really anyone who can read the writing on the wall has made a run for it. She's been living with three Hufflepuff girls in Bath, trying to convince them she's one of them. Either that'll work, or they'll see her as a way of feeding 'reliable' information to the Death Eaters, which we might still be able to use."</p>
      <p>Draco found it a bit of an odd living arrangement, but numerous explanations were possible. What came to mind was that they were mudbloods who preferred to live in a magical area to be able to practice, and went in together on a lease to be more cost-effective.</p>
      <p>"What has she learned?"</p>
      <p>"It's just more registration and regulation and oversight; no new terms introduced. <em>Prophet</em>'s been calling Crouch a job creator."</p>
      <p>The Malfoy heir audibly scoffed. Any wizard could be an excellent job creator if allowed to employ an infinite amount of people for whatever purpose he chose.</p>
      <p>"Taxation, then?"</p>
      <p>"Pansy doesn't look at tax forms," Derrick muttered. "I would think it's substantial, but it's only on people who haven't moved out."</p>
      <p>The blonde wizard refrained from smirking. It was obvious that the Death Eaters would defeat such an easy plan to rob them blind, and they were already fleeing rather than being arrested or killed on suspicion; it was not as if any great feat of cleverness were required or demonstrated. <em>Crouch did not expect to gain any tax revenue from his enemies, but it might serve to drive away anyone who would not be loyal to him. </em>He sighed, remembering Macnair. <em>He shall have little enough trouble paying the taxes with his salary, but we cannot support him; his loyalty may well waver. On the other hand, the Weasleys will likely be paying more than they make. Let not a wizard say taxes are without an advantage.</em></p>
      <p>Goyle had spent part of the summer helping the Crabbe family to move their possessions, which seemed unnecessary. There was a Crabbe already in Durmstrang as of the previous year, though given his age he could really only help with the Russian language; most concepts of magic were still out of his reach. If anything, it was Goyle helping him with spells and elementary theory, though that started more arguments than anything else. It was certain that they would never get anywhere without a proper teacher.</p>
      <p>"Nott, has your research determined anything that will help us over Christmas holiday?" he asked, omitting the obvious 'or whatever they call it here'. "I remember suggesting looking into the prison as well as the man himself."</p>
      <p>"Ah, yes, the great Castle Nurmengrad, now home to over a thousand prisoners from our home as well as the continent- home and final resting place, that is." <em>I suppose the magical governments would do well not to waste the cells just for the sake of dramatic irony. Grindelwald did make them inescapable, or so he boasted. </em>"The enchantments are not public knowledge, but our adversary was not a man to buy every book in a library. He read the one or two texts he needed, then burned them. Austrian librarians should be able to put us closer to the truth, assuming they kept their records."</p>
      <p>Draco kept his scowl to himself. The country was almost a paradox of freedom and restrictions, but if people erred on the side of caution, they would destroy evidence of their every activity. The short version of Nott's report was that he was not even able to adequately research the place into which they were trying to gain illegal access, but he would give the young man points for phrasing it in such a manner that sounded like a success.</p>
      <p>"Grindelwald was educated here," he reminded the assembled vassals. "If there is anything that would be of any use, this is the place to look." The dark wizard covered his tracks as thoroughly as necessary at the time, but it was impossible to forget nothing, especially the myriad of nearly identical days he would have spent as a boy in school. <em>At some point it started to seem like the days were longer than the weeks because I remembered more of what happened that day than of the rest of the week- most of what we know is completely forgotten, and mostly for good reason.</em></p>
      <p>At the same time, he doubted he would ever forget his mistakes with Creevey and Harper, to say nothing of the failed invasion of Hogwarts, though his part in it was likely irrelevant. Weasley, though he would probably never realize it, was perfectly instrumental. Had it not been for his efforts in seeing it for what it was and warning what seemed like the whole school, the Death Eaters would have had it. Knowing that, there was no remotely logical reason to suspect him of being a blood purist, or even a servant of Voldemort. <em>The conspirators were likely unaware of his actions because he failed to claim credit for them- a few of the higher ranks would know, but they see the entire world as allies and enemies, and if he was not one, he was the other.</em></p>
      <p>The meeting dispersed as he stood to leave, as were his orders, and his mind returned to the paradox of establishing himself. Blood purism demanded that his fathers be honored with his every step and spell, that if it were not so that his ancestors placed him where he was, it was to be believed all the same, the better for the magical world that pure blood be prized and long lines recognized. He could not very well introduce the ideology in a more social, meritocratic environment, nor could he climb ranks by his customary means, yet he would undermine it in climbing alone.</p>
      <p>He read a letter from Padma the previous night, and though he could understand her attachment, it seemed unreasonable she would miss him after only a matter of weeks. She had been on her hands and knees with her parents to either remain in Britain or be sent to Durmstrang, but she would be going to India with her parents. It was unfair, to be sure; had she run off like her sister she could go wherever she pleased, as long as she had some way of covering the cost. The Ravenclaw went on to say that she had hoped to be useful if she could not be by his side, and it struck him as a servile way of looking at things, seeing it all written down like that, but he had greater concerns than how she saw him, and at least she would serve his purposes.</p>
      <p>Evening provided time for Astronomy classes, which was well enough, though he saw the material as inferior to the Hogwarts counterpart. It was almost the same thing as Divination, which made it nearly useless; what he already knew was more than sufficient. The essential mistake of mixing the two was a logical issue, as Professor Sinistra explained. The stars and planets had magical effects on the world, and these could be reliably predicted, and in some cases used, where enough of them overlapped, but on Earth it remained to be seen whether or not the celestial bodies would make any difference. If the prophecies came true, the diviners recorded the apparent effects of the motions beyond the mundane spheres. If the prophecies failed to come true, it was only that they had not yet come to pass, and missing expectations was rarely in the books of the planets inscribed. She called it a conclusion that could not be falsified, something she had discussed much with Professor Flitwick.</p>
      <p>By contrast, he had enjoyed learning about dark magic, as expected, but his rank would have to improve before he got into anything truly interesting, and evening classes could only be spent making a mockery of Astronomy, for which he had something of a sense of wonder. The instructor greeted them as always, an oddly warm display in such an environment as the tallest round spire on the school, its surface covered in snow and the air alive with bitter wind.</p>
      <p>Meister Masur reminded them that it was summer yet, and the winter would bring with it much harsher temperatures.</p>
      <p>The lesson began with another lesson on theory, with Draco's writing only narrowly matching the teacher's ability to explain absolute nonsense. The other students were keeping up, mostly, though they had the advantage in hearing it all in a language they understood; around the time roughly half of the students at the school stated that they spoke Russian, it became the official language of the school, and nothing else was to be spoken in class. Tõnisson was quite notable in his refusal to participate, speaking the Estonian language at every possible opportunity. He came from a small country, where wizards mostly seeped into lands of greater opportunity to make names for themselves; the Ireland of Eastern Europe; for all the nationalistic bluster the people generally knew the score. He could hardly help but find it admirable that his enemy would fight a losing battle for his country, the idea of it could even be extrapolated to the war for magic, but it was not nearly as important, not on any sort of scale.</p>
      <p>The Astronomy class, the Russian language, and having to compete with Evan almost made him wish he had been sent to India, where Padma would constitute something of an added bonus. The country had a large magical population that could be rallied behind the cause of the Dark Lord if he played his cards carefully, and with Burma falling to those who would at least work with them, all of South Asia might well follow. He reminded himself it was not as if Britain and her conflicts were significant for reasons of where or who, but because it was the battleground that would decide the fate of the magical world entirely. It was also incorrect to say that each country had its equivalent of each side, leader, or group, but there were those who would join the cause of the Death Eaters, if only because of one other party they were fighting.</p>
      <p>His thoughts followed him all the way back to the sleeping quarters, where he had a measure of writing to do before he could lie down.</p>
      <p>"Malfoy," It was a voice from the shadows. He stopped his writing, hand moving imperceptibly for his wand. Not for the first time, he wished he had invested in a charmed quill.</p>
      <p>"Yes?"</p>
      <p>"Your enemies are many and they surround you. Perhaps you are not worth the warning you receive, but you will receive it all the same."</p>
      <p>"Who are you?"</p>
      <p>"I do not speak my name and you will thank me for it." Draco could not quite tell if the voice were male or female. "By delaying your plans, you are allowing your enemies to gain ground on the continent, but there is still a chance to oppose them." <em>No one knows about the Nurmengrad plan outside the Death Eaters- </em>"On Halloween night they will meet in the great city of Ys, and they will not notice any unexpected arrivals."</p>
      <p>"Who is meeting- what are they-" His questions accumulated worryingly, yet they would go unanswered. The darkness was silent after that, but the sudden entrance of the anonymous voice meant someone knew how to find him. <em>It also means someone is trying to aid the cause of blood purism. By releasing Grindelwald, Central Europe will be thrown into disarray. He would be no ally of ours, but I should expect him to pose a challenge to the magical governments clamping down on the populations. The meeting must be some kind of international summit, if they're going all the way to Ys for it. Opposing them there will be a victory for the magical world.</em></p>
      <p>His thoughts would not leave him alone as he went to bed, trying to puzzle out the plans of both his enemies and his betters, who wisely kept most things from him, however much he found it vexing. Oddly one thing in particular stood out; it was a letter from the Dark Lord himself to Dolores Umbridge- she kept it in her desk and he found it after he lied to one of her assistants that she was having him relay an order to tidy up her workspace, in the relatively peaceful days of his apprenticeship. He had only been hoping for a loose document about policy or possibly discarded plans, but there it was; there was no mistaking it. It was a reasonably polite request to make his resurrection known, which she quite apparently denied. One question remained.</p>
      <p>
        <em>What kind of response was he hoping to receive?</em>
      </p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Company Halt</h2></a>
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    <p>Meeting with Luna in the theater had been an opportunity to share information, mostly the wards they used to deflect unwanted attention. Ron sometimes wondered if spells circulated around the Ravenclaw common area, but did not feel like asking. Seated in the otherwise empty audience, he was in the row behind with Mafalda, while their new allies were in front of them, turned around uncomfortably. His scowl had not diminished even slightly.</p><p>"You know, it was just as difficult for me to get these two to work together," Lovegood started. "I expected someone raised in the center of a fairy ring to be quite sanguine."</p><p>Ron snorted. Fairy rings were a myth; fungi grew in circles naturally. It was one of those things muggles expected to find in the magical world for some reason, nothing more.</p><p>"Where do I even begin? He's a traitor, even to people who've helped him, and he's the same, if he's even what he's claiming to be. He was an enemy not five minutes ago."</p><p>In front of him Macmillan was looking at the floor, but Harper glared back over his shoulder; even the skin on his neck seemed to make an angry expression as it twisted.</p><p>"I maintain that my treason was justified, and has since become irrelevant. We are all runaways now, and we would be wise to stand together."</p><p>"Dammit, Harper, I really don't care if you betrayed Malfoy or a blast-ended skrewt. You're going to betray us too, if we let you."</p><p>"I didn't think we were enemies," the Hufflepuff said, still staring at the floor. "I thought you were our allies, but you just weren't helping. I didn't really want to help myself, and I was only willing to help fight the enemy if we all had to."</p><p>"So what, you just believed what they told you about us? They said we were blood purists and you ate it up? You know Herimone's-"</p><p>"I didn't know what else to believe, Weasley," Ernie argued. "I only ever heard one side of the story, so even if I thought there was something wrong with it, well, it was always closer to the truth than any other explanation."</p><p>Ron sighed deeply, resting his temples on a finger. He had a mind to ask how the two of them ended up with Lovegood, but he could guess Harper's parents disowned him after he fled, or perhaps he simply could not face them; it hardly mattered. He was acting out of a sense of self-preservation, and that was at least reliable. Ernie, if telling the truth, would have deviated from the summer plans of his House and sought out dissidents instead, possibly claiming to be a spy of some sort. What seemed more probable was Electrum or whoever down in the department just decided to have him look around for dissenters and report back every so often, if at all possible.</p><p>"And why is it that you trust them?" he asked, looking back to the Ravenclaw.</p><p>"Trust would be taking it a bit far," she said, sounding as if she had rehearsed it. "I believe everyone and everything should be given a chance. If you don't have any reason not to believe in them, then you should. If you think about it, most of your friends never did anything to earn your trust; you just decided you wanted to trust them and they never proved you wrong."</p><p>Ron's vision went red, but someone cast a shield. <em>Hermione earned my trust. What do you even know?</em></p><p>"Perhaps it could be more clearly phrased," Macmillan decided. "Did you keep all of your friends at a wand's length until they told you all their secrets and you were certain they were not-"</p><p>"My friends didn't <em>start out </em>as enemies! Don't think you're out of the woods, either Harper-"</p><p>"I did not kidnap your sister," the Slytherin wizard said, scowling. He raised a hand to run it through his hair, but as he no longer had it, he disregarded the idea. "She came with us because she wanted to and the fact that she died was... an unfortunate coincidence. I was not there to witness it, but Weasley and the witch he brought with him were talking on the other floor when I came round."</p><p>For some reason, that explanation sounded rehearsed as well.</p><p>"You can't expect me to believe that-"</p><p>"No, we just expected you to have the courage to have us around," Harper said. "Ginny told me that you'd turn over every stone looking for her, you know. No Grootslang could keep Ron away, she said-"</p><p>"Are you a damn Grootslang?" he asked, not knowing what sort of magical creature it was. The name sounded like 'Boomslang', but he doubted that was anything other than a coincidence. "Even Hagrid tells us to keep an eye on those things at all times."</p><p>He rose, Mafalda rising with him. In her case, being from the same House as the wizard would make him less trustworthy, not more.</p><p>"Ron..." Lovegood started, speaking to his turned back. "Perhaps I seem unusual to you, and perhaps I cannot explain why we should work together, but I trust these two with my life. They have both left those who would have supported them, and they cannot go back."</p><p>The Gryffindor exhaled sharply through his nose, thinking about it. Hermione would insist on giving them a second chance because it was the right thing to do, but Hannah would not have taken Macmillan if she had to kill him in cold blood. <em>Reckon Terry might've tried to calculate the probability of betrayal, but he'd prob'ly end up agreeing with Hermione anyway.</em></p><p>For his own part, he could not quite make himself walk away from the intelligence.</p><p>"Then they've told you things they weren't meant to tell you? Things you know would really ruin their plans, not the plans they want you to think they'd ruin?"</p><p>"They will if I ask."</p><p>"Where'd Voldemort put the Philosopher's Stone?"</p><p>"I don't know that. My parents aren't a part of the Inner Circle; they're just supporting the Death Eaters financially. They're blood purists on paper, but really I think my dad's half and half." Harper sighed, rubbing his shaved temples. "They're not murderers, they're just aristocrats who want to associate with other landed families."</p><p>Nothing was said for a moment. Though Ron was tempted to shout that it was a likely story, the group had already had discussions on the subject. Most of the people supporting their enemies did not have the information to ruin the plans. The Hufflepuffs would not have told Macmillan anything substantial.</p><p>"Where does Ebony live?" <em>She's only one part of the operation- it's worth asking. Best part is, I'll know if he's lying.</em></p><p>"We knew you went there with Dean; there just wasn't any proof of it," the ex-conspirator explained at length. "Anyone working for Voldemort would have killed her after getting information out of her head. Even she doesn't know everything, but we knew whoever did the crime was probably under the Trace and did not know how to use the mind arts."</p><p>Few of his questions were answered. It was not even sensitive information; it was something he might have guessed, but something about the way Macmillan said it made it seem entirely unplanned, like he was not meant to reveal it. It did not remind him of one of the last things Hannah told him, how Justin Finch-Fletchey tried to convince her he wanted to join the group. <em>I don't want to call it good enough there. I can't.</em></p><p>"Is there anything you know?" he asked at length. "Anything we might not know?"</p><p>He anticipated the answer as soon as the words came out. There was a reason Luna had not asked them after all, that she suspected a footsoldier and a truant would not be handed information that could compromise the operations of the Death Eaters or the Department. The conspirators maintained an illusion of equality and shared information through their nearly constant meetings, but the truth was that if they were all given an order to execute, they would only be told a few minutes in advance, if that, and they would not need to know why, because they had a pretext for everything. The blood purists controlled their minions through fear, fear of the enemy, fear of their master, and fear of the alternative to carrying out his designs.</p><p>This meant, however, that the advantage he had hoped they would present essentially did not exist.</p><p>"Sorry," Macmillain offered, still not meeting his eyes. It was a common behavior of liars, but that did not mean he was lying, or even probably lying. "The only thing I could think of is that they would possibly, maybe take me back if I went to the Ministry school. If I did that, though, I wouldn't be able to get out all year. I can't think of how I'd be of any use."</p><p>"Well, then you and I are in the same boat," Mafalda said, nearly whispering. "When I came to the group, I just wanted them to protect me. I did not care who they were or what they wanted. It was only after I attended or eavesdropped most of their meetings that I started to get it. It's not about what happens; you just have to do the right thing." Her gaze had not left him. "You wanted to do the right thing," she supposed. "After the group helped you, you volunteered to go looking for them, didn't you?"</p><p>Ron had not forgotten knocking out or petrifying Macmillan after he had been among a group of Hufflepuffs outside the mysterious room.</p><p>"You weren't trying to catch us?" he asked.</p><p>"Not after the second time you showed more concern for me than I deserved, no. At first I thought I could change their minds about you. If I was on the inside, I could tell them that you were not out to put us all in early graves, and I hoped they would believe me. I expected that they would say you were putting on a show by being merciful. Perhaps I might have expected them to dismiss you as being so naïve as to help the enemy; I would have been able to argue against those ideas. Instead, they told me that I only saw your actions as merciful because they helped me, and the endless amounts of innocents that blood purism would kill made that irrelevant." He sighed. "I averred, of course, that my life was not worth more than all of those, but they looked at me in a different light from then on."</p><p>Nothing was said for a moment. The Gryffindor was not sure Mafalda's idea of the group was entirely the same as his, but it was serviceable.</p><p>"What about you, Harper?" he asked. "Why are you here? Reckon self-preservation's as good of a reason as any."</p><p>"My reasons are mine own," the Slytherin wizard answered. "If what you will trust is self-preservation, that will serve." Ron blinked. "Perhaps you were expecting something different. I don't care. I'm not going to prove anything to you; as long as you're aware my chances are better with you than with my own parents, you'll understand well enough."</p><p>"Fine," he spat back. "Fine, let's move on to something else. <em>Merlin.</em>"</p><p>"Indeed."</p><p>Though Harper irked him to no end, and he would not be sorry to see him run off in a week, which seemed more likely with the passing hour, the general selfishness the young man put on display was what any other soldier of the cause would simply keep hidden. If he ever intended to have a fighting force that could take on any of his enemies, he would have to be able to work with people who were not dyed-in-the-wool heroes. <em>Reckon the whole damned world can't be full of people like Hannah. As long as he's helping us and not the Death Eaters, we should let him.</em></p><p>According to Hermione, who heard it from Neville, both Malfoy and a few of the conspirators seemed to base being good or bad on being on the right side or any other. Someone like Harper would be far better in their eyes than an honest, just Death Eater who treated everyone with mercy, and someone like Macmillan would be accepted by the other side before a virtuous denier of the muggle threat. <em>Course, she always used to tell me that there might be someone good on the wrong side- not that she could name anyone.</em></p><p>It appeared Lovegood wanted to steer the meeting from there, which was well enough, since he was lost in thought, a sensation he did not enjoy. It seemed as if everything had stopped moving, and no progress could be made until they could get past the issue of loyalties. <em>It was easy when it was just the four of us. Should've thought there'd be some question of loyalty when we got more than that.</em></p><p>It was a fact that he could not effectively appeal to friendship or goodwill whenever he was dealing with anyone other than just his close friends. Countries seemed to run on some combination of shared interest and force. Armies, somewhat smaller and more selective units, seemed to have some tenuous sense of kinship, but that was trained into the soldiers as much as it came with the experience.</p><p>"We need a chain of command," he whispered to the Slytherin witch. Something of a spat had come up between Macmillan and Harper. "-especially if this gets any bigger. Terry was right about needing a leader."</p><p>"We learned that much at the end of last year," she responded, keeping her voice down. "At the same time, think of how it looks. You don't want to show up and make yourself the absolute authority."</p><p>"It's not a fake attack if people really die, damn you!" the Hufflepuff wizard shouted, making Ron and Mafalda turn.</p><p>"What is this? We haven't heard-"</p><p>"I don't blame you, the whole thing is contrived from the start," Harper explained. "We needn't risk our necks."</p><p>Everyone turned to Macmillan.</p><p>"It isn't anything concrete, far be it from anyone-"</p><p>"It's not even liquid. It's a puff of hot air," the Slytherin wizard muttered.</p><p>"-rumors, rumblings, implications from anyone who's still talking to me. Whatever it is, it'll happen by the announcement of the new Department Head." Lovegood's head cocked. "-Magical Law Enforcement, Scrimgeour has it in the bag- it doesn't matter, there's going to be deaths. Electrum asked someone, you wouldn't know her, about silver masks."</p><p>"What does that mean?" Mafalda asked.</p><p>"He thinks it means they're going to dress up as Death Eaters and kill people," Harper explained. "To say nothing of how little he actually knows-"</p><p>"Might as well have it out, then," Ron interrupted. "Just tell us what you know."</p><p>"As I said, it isn't much, it's not enough to completely ruin their plans at this point, but they agreed to a meeting place, or at least two of them did."</p><p>"What happens when we go to the meeting place, Macmillan?" Harper jeered. "We're surrounded by the conspirators playing dress up and they kill us?"</p><p>"What's your plan, then?" the Gryffindor asked, feeling himself go a bit red. <em>Can't lose my head.</em> "Stay home whilst-"</p><p>"We should expose them. There isn't a chance in hell they'll kill mubloods- their victims will be as pure as they can find. As long as they keep their masks on, no one notices, no one asks 'why would they kill pure bloods'. If, however, the masks were to come off, the world would know damn well why."</p><p>"Why would they print it?" the younger Slytherin asked. <em>She has a point. </em>Recently the <em>Prophet</em> had been on a crusade against alternative publications like <em>The Quibbler</em>, as well as a few programs on the wireless. Under Crouch the paper had evolved from a paragon of truth to a bloody standard against misinformation, especially when it came to events it did not report. The death of a Wizengamot prosecutor, impossible to spin as a positive, was disregarded in favor of covering the movements of suspected Death Eaters abroad. When an announcement of her death came out, as well as the possibility that it could have been a murder rather than a suicide, the <em>Prophet </em>established that the competing sources were likely blood purist publications, distracting from the more recent news as they were.</p><p>"If they don't, someone else will. It's about how they frame it," Macmillan said. "I shall not deny, not by the stars themselves that whatever is written, the conspirators being caught committing such a crime will be disastrous for their aims, announced and otherwise. It is not, however, worth sacrificing the people they would kill in the process." He looked to Ron.</p><p>The eyes of everyone else followed.</p><p>"Well-" <em>Can't ask them not to ask me; I'm trying to bring them to heel. If I can't answer questions like this, I can't keep them in line. </em>"-what kind of number- Well, do we know anything about how many would die?"</p><p>It seemed like everyone but Luna screamed. Mafalda might have been defending him, Harper was probably just attacking Macmillan, but he was loudly demanding to know how the quantity could possibly matter. The Ravenclaw raised a hand.</p><p>"Hear him out, please."</p><p>"Well, I'm sure any amount would seem a bit arbitrary-" he started, reaching back in his memory to a discussion with Terry. "-but I don't think a life is worthless, and I don't think it's worth infinity, or worth more than anything else. If it were, you'd never trade a life for anything, even another life. I really don't get why people who- fight wars, or really do anything but hide and surrender, can think there's nothing worth dying over." <em>Prob'ly making this obvious that I didn't think this out ahead of time. </em>"I think truth and justice are worth dying over- freedom, can't forget general sanity I suppose. I know I'd die for any one of my family members, but they'd be tripping over themselves to get out in front-"</p><p>"So we should let those innocent people die?"</p><p>"I haven't made that decision yet," Ron said. <em>At least he's asking me like it is my decision.</em></p><p>"If you want to win the war, you must take public perception into account," Harper started, annoyed. "It will never get out that we knew they would die and allowed it in favor of exposing their killers. Whatever the Ministry's dog in the <em>Prophet </em>decides to print, the pictures will make an indelible impression on the international community."</p><p>It was something he had to seriously consider, as little as he liked it. According to various publications, it was exceptionally hard to fake a picture, and there were simple spells that would effectively determine if the picture had been altered in any way. He had not read anything on the subject, but just from seeing enough of them, they seemed more like memories than anything else.</p><p>"We'll make two plans," he decided. <em>I can't fracture the group this early. </em>"We don't know if there's any saving those people- might be they're already dead and whoever the hell dresses up as Death Eaters is just going to drag their bodies out of a basement when it's time. Point is, I reckon there are a million and a half ways for either plan to, well, just not have any chance of working. Can't plan for everything, but we should at least have some sort of option."</p><p>Shouting had been replaced with silence. No one seemed particularly enthused. <em>And that's the sign of a good compromise.</em></p><p>There was more planning to do, to be certain, but if one thing was certain, everything would have to be done before Mafalda had to go back home to Belfast. Her parents were aware Hogwarts had not left her with the best of memories, and with that as a preface, they had a surprise for her. His concern grew with the passing hour, but if it was anything like what he thought it would be, he would have to eat some words he had shouted at Hermione.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The First Day</h2></a>
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    <p>Hermione followed close behind Cho, finding it easy to stay true to her word. It was clear that everyone was looking at her, meaning she was right. The students filed into an enormous, rectangular palace-looking building, though she was sure that was her own limited perspective. It was not a castle, she knew, since castles usually had a high stone foundation with the palace on top, though perhaps in the magical world, there was no need for physical fortifications. The students had universally changed into all white robes, and presently waited on both knees in a perfect grid with their eyes to the floor. She knew not to say anything to her friend, in any language, so she recited the copula in her head.</p><p>"功夫不负有心人" The voice made her look up. <em>Efforts will be rewarded. No suffering, no merit. </em>"机不可失，时不再来" She could not see whence the words came, but they sounded like a list of rules, or perhaps advice. With a perfectly authoritative meritocracy, though, she supposed those were the same. "己所不欲,勿施于人" <em>Well, I suppose I did not expect a general moral principle, but it can hardly hurt.</em></p><p>The Golden Rule, as it had come to be called, was a logical, accessible principle, and she found it no surprise at all that it had come about in many different places in the world, likely without any influence. Phrased less generously, it was 'don't be a hypocrite', almost insultingly simple for all the pomp it received. She felt it was sometimes necessary to mention that it did not apply to matters of preference.</p><p>Supper was almost immediately after, which was standard, since it was already late, but what surprised her was that they simply appeared in a massive room divided into wooden booths of four, decorated paper partitions going up to the ceiling. Hermione was not with Cho, so she expected there would be no English explanation for what exactly just happened. The meal on the table was a seasoned pork dish with vegetables, rice on the side, though the others were levitating it together as they ate. The two wizards and the witch were not without formalities, they even seemed to have a hierarchy of seniority where the oldest wizard, a taller youth with glasses, seemed to speak rather than waiting. The other wizard was younger, and it was clear enough he was more of an urbanite than the witch, who had a darker skin tone.</p><p>The foreign witch decided to tarry no longer in eating, and found it quite good, if a bit different. Taking the opportunity to gain information, her ears inhaled a few details about classes, expectations- and apparently the trick with seamlessly moving to different floors was in the warding. They were most likely in an impossible space or an entirely different part of the country. Sighing, she decided it would be better to try to make friends with some of the newer students, since at least she would have something in common with them.</p><p>The communal dishes before them were replaced with a meat dish arranged in the shape of a jellyfish, pickled leeks, and century eggs. Eating more judiciously, she answered a few basic questions about herself. Everyone seemed interested in the same few things after guessing she was British. <em>Did you go to Hogwarts? What was your class rank? Is magic different there? Where are your parents? Do you have a boyfriend?</em></p><p>Some questions were more difficult to answer than others.</p><p>Oddly no one asked about Death Eaters, and she did not even expect someone to ask about the Ministry, but she remembered information was tightly controlled, not that it seemed people minded. Hermione knew better than to go bringing either subject up, at least not directly. Asking what they knew so as not to say anything unnecessary, it seemed they knew there was a conflict, but were not interested outside of that. It was not as if something that was being actively repressed was illegal to discuss, but she imagined that more warding could change that.</p><p>Finding Cho again as they went to bed there were so many questions she wanted to ask, but the other Ravenclaw insisted they get a bedroom first. They walked to their zodiac animal, the goat, and were whisked away to a small, square room with four beds. Properly, they were like alcoves in the walls, with a decorative metal array around each entrance instead of posts. She and Cho shared the room with two witches who seemed to know each other.</p><p>Léi Zǔ, written 嫘祖, was a quiet sort, but willing to explain that she had an interest in magical weaving, of which Hermione had never heard.</p><p>Yù kūn, written 毓坤, was more gregarious, but Hermione doubted her true feelings were necessarily on display. <em>No one gives away this much on a first impression.</em></p><p>The evening provided enough time for little more than idle chatting after the introductions concluded, and it seemed the others were taking her and Cho at face value. <em>I hadn't thought about it, but they can probably tell she's been away for years... She's almost as new to this as I am.</em></p><p>The other two were the first in bed, but they were not long after. Generally, at least from what little she knew, the students were expected to bathe in the evenings, but perhaps the opening feast was an exception.</p><p>Morning came quickly. The shifting of rooms the moment after they were dressed was probably something to which she could adjust herself, but it was still a jarring experience. Breakfast was quick, and the food was appropriately light. It seemed their friends Leizu and Yukun would keep up with them for their first class, which was on tea etiquette, of all things. It was a moderately humbling class, since it seemed everyone else had been exposed to it already, and there were specific terms about which she had to ask, and it was forbidden to ask Cho. Looking around, it seemed not everyone was even doing the exercise, so perhaps it was not enforced, or perhaps there was no rule about it at all. Hermione had been in China around a month when it started to seem people just picked and chose which standards to follow, having some unspoken idea as to whether or not it was a big deal.</p><p>"Do you have any idea where we are?" she asked her friend at one point. "I mean, the building where we entered might have had impossible spaces-"</p><p>"I do not think so," Cho said directly. The other students were not looking around for the instructor, so it seemed Enchantment would have to wait for him or her to arrive. "The Five Emperors made five schools. The States made two more. Modern China burned three, and built three." She seemed to imply there were schools around the country, which made sense for how large and how old the civilization was. <em>They would have consolidated during the twentieth century.</em></p><p>The class was interesting, if Hermione had heard some of the material before. It was being covered from a different perspective, but she had studied Chinese characters and their origins in her most recent year of Ancient Runes, meaning she could basically keep up, though she did not expect that to be the trend for her other classes. The professor's lecture revealed, to her at least, that even older than Archaic Chinese, the Zhou dynasty hybrid characters, were the oracle bone symbols, that might be closer to runes by her definition. These were essentially pictographs, which evolved into the alphabet of seals, and ideographs she might have recognized from the clerical script.</p><p>"They definitely do not teach the short version here," she said to her friend at lunch after two more classes. She had narrowly avoided embarrassing herself at least three times, though she expected the professors would have mitigated the effects, at least. They did not seem to be out to humble her, perhaps deciding she had the proper attitude already. <em>Ron might have said the same thing, though.</em></p><p>"They do not." Cho was absently poking at her food with chopsticks. It seemed students ate with them versus levitation for some unspoken reason. The Ravenclaws had yet to determine the pattern. "Do you miss home?"</p><p>"I miss Hogwarts," Hermione said at length. "It was... hard, losing the school like that. I think I realized at some point that the school was a large part of, well, what gave me a reason to fight. I could always side with the school, even without Professor Dumbledore there." <em>I might have associated the school with him, though that would be a fair connection to make.</em></p><p>"He was not Headmaster in the distant past," her friend observed.</p><p>"No, he wasn't, and I don't believe the school was always right about everything- or really even that he was, but the school had always maintained a collection of dangerous literature. Historically, the parties that burned books have been wrong, and the parties that allowed every voice have been right, at least in my estimation."</p><p>Their conversations were short by necessity. She was trying to come up with some new idea, some small detail in her reading to complement what Terry had been researching, but she had little in the way of a direction to go with it, and there was only so much she could learn by reading. She preferred it, she knew, to bombarding someone who knew something with questions, but reading Chinese books on magical theory often left her with more questions than answers. Keeping up with her work, barely, she was beginning to have a functional understanding, but the secrets were either beyond her or being kept from her. It was aggravating; it was always on the back of her mind. The school was a spectacular learning institution, but Hogwarts was at least on the same level and she knew which she preferred.</p><p>
  <em>I'm deluding myself. Hogwarts is gone. Hannah and Terry are gone. I need to use what I have, I need to be where I am, and I need to do what I can.</em>
</p><p>Closing the book she was reading, she went to her next class, trying to clear her head as thoughts of the larger world threatened to return. She had tried to compartmentalize as much as possible, but it seemed she would never be quite as good as Ron. Hermione had not heard anything of the outside world the entire time she had been in China, which felt irresponsible at a visceral level, but she could not be responsible for the entire world, or Britain for that matter. What she had already taken on was already impossible, and she knew how and when she started feeling obligated to fight losing battles. <em>It was second year. It was after I revived from being petrified and I saw-</em></p><p>A voice was asking her about the nature of understood magic, how it came from the darkness, and how it returned. The Ravenclaw remembered she was in class.</p><p>"山径之蹊间，介然用之而成路，为间不用，则茅塞之矣" she answered tiredly. Classes seemed to go on longer, and the longer school day certainly did not help her perception of time. Fortunately, she was being asked about something she understood. The instructor seemed impressed with her response, most likely taking it to mean she knew something about dark magic and how it was distinguished from light magic in a practical and theoretical sense. She blinked once or twice at his next question before she figured he was asking about the dark wizards and how dark magic seemed to change them. "常在河边走，哪能不湿鞋" she answered again. <em>This is likely the closest I can expect to get to discussing dark magic in class.</em></p><p>Immediately after class ended, she expected they would be whisked off, but she asked the professor if she could meet him any time. It felt totally unlike her, but she saw no other way to talk about magic theory. It seemed harder to have a conversation with other students, and she might have impressed the instructor enough. Her request was answered with a swift '不是'. She nodded and waited to be transported, noting that a few of the other students found the idea amusing. She scowled, remembering she had no reputation as a 'good girl', if that was how people wanted to put having self-respect and not wanting to basically cheat.</p><p>The Chang family had told her that cheating was expected in the school, whose proper name literally meant 'the school'. It was prevented by every possible means, and she understood students were being watched at all time, but if caught, a student would hardly be tossed out for it. Whatever failed to prevent the act of cheating would simply be fixed without notifying the students. Hermione had not been intending to look at another student's work, but she could see the reason it was not being physically guarded. The bamboo scrolls were illegible to her; she supposed they were warded to obscure the text for anyone who had not written it.</p><p>The students seemed to have some free time, but the expectation was that they would be available, effectively twenty four hours a day, if an instructor or minister wanted them to appear for any reason. Most did not appear to spend free time reading, since that could be done in class, if they could get away with it, so they spent the time socializing and playing games. She remembered exploding snap from Hogwarts, though she never even looked into it; it was just one of those things that made her think 'of course they would have magical games', like wizard's chess and the bizarre game witches invented in Divination. The students she was watching appeared to be playing a card game.</p><p>"Hello. Are you from Europe?" a voice asked. She turned around to see a young man with black glasses. He looked somewhat overweight, which was rare in the magical world, but not entirely unknown.</p><p>"I'm from England," she said, not knowing whether to answer 'yes' or 'no', since her countrymen frequently used 'the continent' and 'Europe' interchangeably. It was a reasonable question, since he did not know anything about her except that she was white, and asked in a reasonable language, commonly picked up as a second across the continent. "My name is Hermione Granger." She showed him a bit of parchment where she had it written down in Simplified, 赫敏·格兰杰.</p><p>"You may call me Shuang," the wizard said, extending a hand. It was pointed forty five degrees to her right.</p><p>"Are you blind?" she asked, likely too bluntly, kicking herself as she realized it. It was a rude question to ask, or at least a rude way to ask it.</p><p>"Yeah, I can't see anything. It's okay, though. I pay close attention when the instructors are talking." The ease with which he spoke made her suspect he had spent some amount of time in an English speaking country.</p><p>"Did you grow up here originally or, well..."</p><p>"I'm from Canada. Most of us go to one of the American schools, but after a year, my parents decided to send me to 'the old country'."</p><p>"Why?" <em>That's too personal of a question. I shouldn't ask that.</em></p><p>"Well, I wasn't getting it. To be frank, I was failing, so they had to send me somewhere my credits wouldn't matter because they couldn't be transferred at all. I knew I needed to get it in gear, no matter how hard it was going to be, since it was probably my last chance. The teachers didn't really take pity on me, but they saw that I was trying with everything I had, so they'd say things twice for me. They'd answer questions even when other people laughed at me."</p><p>"That's nice of them." She felt like she had to say something.</p><p>"Well, I don't think it's really that they're nice- they just decided at some point that I was worth the effort. I was being a good example to everyone else in class."</p><p>Nothing was said for a moment.</p><p>"Is this the only time we can really get anything done?"</p><p>"Yeah. It's an adjustment."</p><p>
  <em>It seems like there are a lot of those around here.</em>
</p><p>"I mean, this is useless information at this point, but I was accustomed to getting done with my classes and then having part of the afternoon and evening for whatever else. There were assignments, but if you kept your head above water you could expect to have some time of your own."</p><p>"Well, we don't have to do anything out of class, but the classes basically never stop, so now you know why."</p><p>Hermione had thought the teaching style and the manner in which the material was being represented would be different, unrecognizable. She had not quite guessed that she would spend most of her waking hours studying. Looking around the room in which the students were gathered, it was massive, so there was more than enough space for all of them, but it was also completely open, so everyone could see everyone.</p><p>"There's not much chance to break down into small groups, is there?" she asked.</p><p>"You'll be able to tell who's associating with whom in a few days. The social cues and unspoken rules don't really get written down into books."</p><p>It looked like their time was ending.</p><p>"Well, thank you for introducing yourself. It's... relaxing to talk in English."</p><p>"You have no idea. I've been at this school for four years now; I thought I'd forget the whole language."</p><p>Free time ended and the students were in their next classes. Getting out her things, she rolled out a sheet of bamboo and took a few quick notes before the instructor started telling them about magical creatures and their uses. <em>I need classes on warding. I need classes on how wards are secured. </em>People were staring at her. <em>I need to go over the book on Occlumency again.</em></p><p>She took notes in Chinese, as was expected, but it helped to be able to record her private thoughts in a language no one else could read. Despite the ease of picking up languages with magic, it was somewhat less common in Magical China to have a second language, since the economic reasons for learning English were dissimilar. Hermione would have thought Legilimency would be prevented, since it was a rather obvious method of cheating, but it was also possible that it was allowed to force students to learn to defend against mental invasion. Everyone fought for a competitive class ranking, the bottom rungs being ignored by everyone, and being a victim of a clever cheater was a sure way to end up there.</p><p>The book on the mind arts had been helpful in familiarizing her with the theory, but the practice was so bizarre and open-ended that it was difficult to wrap her mind around exactly what she was meant to do. To make matters worse, Cho had flatly refused to help her practice without providing any sort of reason. She could understand not wanting someone else inside her mind, even a friend, but it seemed perfectly necessary. Sighing, she decided she would need to ask someone else, possibly Leizu or Yukun, who might already know something on the subject. Even if it worked, there were still so many variables.</p><p>For her plans to work, she needed classes on warding, but before that she needed to at least shield against mental attacks. She knew what she needed for her plans to work, and the cleverer Legilimens likely already knew it as well, but she had to keep herself from planning further ahead. It felt like she was doing nothing other than selfishly studying, living out this fantasy of being a top student in a school where she came in with a disadvantage, and she had no doubt Ron and Mafalda saw it that way; she wanted to go to school, so she went, and that was all there was to it. Parvati leaving had been the catalyst to more than enough arguments- it was not as if she deliberately kept the balance, but she and Ron stayed quiet to keep her around as long as possible. Whether or not the younger witch gained from it, she had no idea.</p><p>Rolling up a bamboo scroll, Hermione resolved to take a look at the class rankings. She needed to see the kinds of scores she would have to make. She doubted she would get into the top ten percent, but she needed to be somewhere close to that for teachers to take notice of her for reasons that served her designs, whatever shape they took when she could trust the silence in her mind.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Other First Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hannah's eyes contracted to respond to being in light again. They had taken on a yellow tone, but there was nothing for it. She had been formally outed as a werewolf, which meant an enchantment had to be applied to her, making her position readily available to anyone who wanted it. Her wand was warded, as expected, and she doubted she could trade with anyone at this point, nor would the library contain any useful information to the end of removing the wards.</p><p>"It really was helpful that you informed on Macnair," a Department employee ventured to her turned back. "He's been quite the font of information." <em>Yet I haven't been cleared of suspicion.</em></p><p>She was released in the clothes she brought in after being offered a short, supervised shower, which she declined. <em>I can live with being filthy for another day. </em>Stepping out of a fireplace, she guessed she was in the Ministry school, though it was after midnight so everything was dark. A witch she did not recognize led her down a hallway and up a long flight of stairs, opening a door with a silent unlocking charm.</p><p>"How did you build this place?" she asked.</p><p>"There was not the time for anything of that nature," the witch said. Hannah estimated her to be about fifty years old. She had a continental tone to her voice. "We only expanded the interior of a wing of offices on the sixth floor, saving the expense and the bother." The younger witch's lips pursed slightly. She had heard of some tenuous downside to living in impossible spaces for long periods of time. What disturbed her more was the sounds coming from one of the rooms down the hall.</p><p>"I guess the doors aren't warded to keep sounds from escaping."</p><p>"No. All sound will be preserved in phonograph wards, where it can and will be perused."</p><p>She could only imagine the administrative bloat that monitoring every single room would take, but she said nothing as she walked into the room. It was hardly necessary to prove it to herself that cost-saving did not motivate public policy, and it would hardly serve any purpose to argue that with the guide. On the subject, she suspected the actual reason for stuffing the entire school inside a matchbox had more to do with being able to lock the entire place down at a moment's notice than saving on resources, which could be transfigured, at least as she understood it.</p><p>It seemed she would have a roommate, which was well enough, but determining who she was could wait until morning. She would only have a few hours before they would have to wake and start classes.</p><p>Guessing she must have fallen asleep easily, she got out of bed with only the usual sores from having been in a cell for long enough. Her roommate was not there, so she decided to skip breakfast and go to her first class, worrying about books when she got there. The classroom turned out to be a rounded auditorium, set up as if for a trial or some sort of speech by Cicero, who might well march in at any moment, with how things had been going. She was still praying her strategy with the Death Eater was paying off, and everything was not simply a figment of her imagination. Other students filed in.</p><p>"Good morning, class," the professor started. It was a wizard she did not recognize. He seemed nice enough, but it was the first day and Hannah had been in a school before.</p><p>"Morning, sir..." came the class's response. It appeared they were learning the theory of Defense, which Hermione had impressed upon her was actually important, if a naked attempt to keep them from learning magic. The professor gave a brief explanation of the purpose of the course before saying that he hoped they would learn plenty and be able to enjoy the process. It appeared he was doing his best to deflect the idea that there would be no need to pay attention without resorting to threatening them with poor notes.</p><p>She took down everything that sounded unfamiliar for later study, taking the opportunity to look around the class. There were so few people even looking in her direction it was possible they were avoiding her intentionally. <em>Well, they would know what I look like. It makes sense, I suppose.</em></p><p>After class a few of the other students were talking about something, so she took the cue and went to the podium.</p><p>"Hi, Professor..."</p><p>"Eiger, thank you." He was a younger looking wizard with compact, blue robes and a short, kept beard.</p><p>"Hi, I would like to thank you for stepping in on such short notice, and well, really for today's lesson. I feel like I understand it better."</p><p>"Thank you." He looked like he was taking a minute before deciding how exactly to continue. "I understand my predecessor was not the best in connecting with students; that outside of study groups, most fifth-years would not have passed their O.W.L's for Defense."</p><p>
  <em>That she wasn't there to teach us anything didn't help.</em>
</p><p>"Students admitted to forming study groups, then, even though they were against the rules?" she asked.</p><p>"Well, they did, and the Headmaster who gained control of the school thereafter decided there was no need to administer punishment." He looked around at the other students. "We can talk more later, if you like."</p><p>The blonde witch nodded, remembering that sometime between classes and everything else she needed to get the message out to her friends that she was out of immediate danger- not out of prison, necessarily, but out of immediate danger. Fire calls were monitored, as well as the owl post, and she doubted she would be allowed out of the school, so she had few options but to start making friends. Her eyes to the floor in front of her as she walked, lost in thought as she was, a vaguely familiar shape came rushing toward her.</p><p>"Hannah!" A mass collided with her before she could do anything to intercept it. <em>Shit- </em>Her shields were down, a pair of arms went around her. "I thought you were dead!"</p><p>"Susan..." she managed, uncertainly. For some reason she was crying. <em>That's not an issue, it just obscures my vision.</em></p><p>The other witch seemed to notice her tears, holding her against her chest and stroking her hair.</p><p>"It's all right. As long as you're okay, everything is all right. I knew they'd let you out eventually." <em>It wasn't out of the kindness of their hearts.</em></p><p>"Where do you live?" she asked, trying to make conversation.</p><p>"Oh, well, they must have moved you in with Leanne, since she was by herself, so I'm on the floor below you."</p><p>Hannah nodded. In her head, the third dimensional shape of the dormitory was most likely wider than it was tall, to minimize stair use. She had some idea they could map one entrance to another even if they should not really be able to line up with each other, like the entrance to Platform 9¾, but it would be trouble if doorways overlapped, meaning there would be multiple ways out of the dormitory to the rest of the school.</p><p>She wanted to catch up with Susan, especially since the witch was clearly putting something into the pocket of her cloak, but time was short and they had to be on their way. Her next class was History, which was actually a waste of time, so she took the opportunity to borrow a book for another class from her neighbor and read as much as she could. From this it seemed they were still teaching Potions, which meant they probably had Slughorn. Experts in the field could still be found, even in times of war, but it was rare they could actually teach students, or so she heard. Hogwarts had a way of holding onto staff members for substantial lengths of time, with the obvious exception of Defense, and there was nowhere further up the educational ladder once you were teaching there. As a cause and an effect, the institution had high standards.</p><p>That was all gone now, though.</p><p>Getting up and leaving at the end of class, still trying to get the theory of potions to stick in her head, she still felt as if she were trying to get her bearings in the school. Since there were empty classrooms in Hogwarts and probably unexplored chambers, she could envision the Ministry school to be smaller, so it would be easy to get around, but it seemed they had gone all out with the sizes of some of the classrooms, which looked more like lecture halls in universities in some cases. It gave her a feeling of a network of grand, common rooms and traveling between them as quickly as possible.</p><p>Potions class proved to be mostly theoretical as well. Slughorn explained that during practice sessions, they would only be brewing safe potions, and only under supervision, meaning he would not be doing it alone. She rolled her eyes at the notion, but suspected that without learning combative magic, students would find other ways to be dangerous to the Ministry and its interests. It was rather obvious that they were seriously compromising education for the sake of declawing the young, but as Ron explained, the first task of a regime is to perpetuate itself. Even some mostly good, just system had its eye out for rebels, because even if the native population was entirely content, there were always foreign threats and agitators.</p><p>At the end of another long class, there was something she wanted to ask the instructor. She did not particularly care for him, and avoided the matter before, but she was past being bothered by creepy teachers. <em>If I can't do this, I can't do anything to help my friends.</em></p><p>"Professor Slughorn, did you know Voldemort when he was in school?" she asked, making sure there was no one else around.</p><p>"I, well, I didn't think I told anyone about that, no, I'm afraid that could put me in a spot of trouble, so it would be best if you didn't mention it, dear-"</p><p>"It would, yes," Hannah said. <em>Well, I didn't want to threaten him, because now he'll just tell me what he thinks I want to hear. </em>"I don't intend to tell anyone anything, as long as I can be certain you're not on his side."</p><p>"Of course not, dear girl, never- you mustn't think I'm prejudiced like some Slytherins, bit of a shame it's only a few of us pure bloods doing the right thing and distancing themselves from the bad sort-"</p><p>He had a voice that was polite to the point of grovelling, and a way of speaking that seemed to ramble on.</p><p>"It's nothing urgent, sir, it's just that if I have a question in the near future, I really would appreciate the truth."</p><p>Walking out of the room without saying anything more, she decided the most likely reason the Ministry was able to get him was that they could guarantee his safety. There were no guarantees wherever the rest of the old Hogwarts teachers went; there was only their own heroism. Some were not cut out for heroics. It was not as if she would extend the exception for everything else he did, but it was ridiculous to expect him to risk his life. <em>Well, would you look at that. I finally get what Ron meant.</em></p><p>She still needed some way of getting a message out to her friends, and was determined not to forget about it even if she had no idea how, but there was a chance the letter she received from Susan would give her a clue. Refraining from gorging herself at lunch, she kept it under the table as she read. The text was practically illegible.</p><p>
  <em>Dear Susan,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hannah was arrested, but you'd know that. We know your aunt probably can tell us where they took her, and she probably doesn't need me to tell her she won't have her job much longer. If my dad thought well of anyone at the Ministry, they're getting replaced or thrown in prison, wherever the hell that is. This October, on the day that Hannah called in 'the biggest favor of her life', you know, the time where she guessed all those sweets? -that day, in October, on the street where, well as she told me, you once stubbed your toe on a particularly notty wizard, and acted like it was an accident, I'll be there and you can tell me where she ended up. They probably won't let you visit her, so that'll tell you where she is. I don't know how you can get there; just don't be followed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Thanks, Ron</em>
</p><p>If her interpretation of the date was correct, it had not passed yet, meaning the other witch's loyalty remained untested. Hannah doubted the letter was a fake or anything of that nature. It would hardly help them to give it to her if they wanted Ron, and they already had her. If it had been intercepted, there was no way of knowing, but it seemed unlikely the letter would have still reached its intended recipient. The spelling error stood out, so it was almost certain he was referring to Theodore Nott, and therefore the time she ran into him in Hogsmeade. <em>Perhaps the hope would be that they would think he was referring to Knockturn Alley, since that is where dark arts types like to skulk around, but Susan would remember it, since she told me.</em></p><p>Hannah supposed that if the letter had been intercepted, they could have tortured the information out of her, or tried to, but perhaps it was sent at a time when no one was really paying attention. Her friend had not said how she received it; whether by owl, floo, or dead drop. If Ron knew where to find her house, he could have left it there, or had someone do it for him. She surmised that the reason the letter was given to her was so that she could go to the arranged location instead, saving the trouble of telling him that she was out of prison and giving her the choice as to whether or not she wanted to come back. Knowing Susan, she might have actually gone so far just to create a romantic surprise meeting, twigging that they were special to each other from the letter.</p><p>She wanted to think about whether or not she would come back, but the issue of leaving was still there. She could send her friend, who probably did not have wards all over her, but she still needed to find a way to get out. If anything else seemed unlikely, enjoying her time in the Ministry school or learning anything that would help undermine them seemed the least of them all.</p><p>The rest of her day was devoted to classes and catching up. Even if she learned nothing, she had to pretend like she was at least willing to accept her new lot in life. The following morning, the Defense teacher found her again, reading through a stack of books in the mess hall.</p><p>"Miss Abbott? Is that a frown there?" She supposed she was not wearing a cheery expression. "I heard about your condition. Well, we were all made aware of it."</p><p>"It's not a condition, technically," she responded, keeping her voice even, and above a mutter. "It's a curse."</p><p>"That's not what's making you upset right now, is it?" <em>He can see me glowering at the books. I have to get a better hold on my expressions.</em></p><p>"No, that's these books; they're useless. Some of them- I can't even imagine why they were written, like this one about the dark arts. I have no interest in practicing dark magic, but it's not helpful to just tell me not to do it and the nasty things that happened to the wizards who messed around it. I don't think they'd have any readers if they weren't required."</p><p>"I think I see the source of your frustration." Hannah let out a long breath as he spoke. Being fair to Professor Eiger, he was actually managing the situation about as well as it could be managed. "You see, you always have a set of choices in front of you. Some people make the mistake of putting effort into options that just aren't there. In your case, you seem to already understand that you can't go back to being a human, and that's good. You've progressed a lot in what I understand to be a short amount of time. The thing of it is, the same rule applies to administrations. You may not entirely agree with whoever is currently in charge."</p><p>"How did you guess?"</p><p>He shrugged. "That happens. I don't think anyone does agree, except the real ideologues," he continued. "When you've lived long enough, you'll have lived under several people you might not like, and a few you think were better than the others. I don't think some of my colleagues understand this in the way that they reach out to students. They expect students to see things the same way they do automatically, but it's not so easy as that."</p><p>"What are you saying?"</p><p>"Nothing I haven't already said. Do your best to pick the best options before you, and don't let yourself fall for the trap of options that aren't really there."</p><p>It was a short conversation, but a meaningful one. It told her that a teacher was a generally nice man, with the same brand of defeatism that most people seemed to have. It was hardly cowardly, since he did not seem to believe any fighting needed to take place, but the notion reminded her of another conversation she wanted to have before flying the coop- <em>however the hell I manage that.</em></p><p>Finding the appropriate room with help from a younger student, the teachers had no offices, but rather a large room in which they all had desks, so it was structured like some of the larger departments in the Ministry. She found the Potions desk easily.</p><p>"Hi, Professor Slughorn, there was something else I wanted to discuss."</p><p>He nearly jumped.</p><p>"Dear me, I don't believe I saw you there." He looked around, seeing some of his colleagues staring. Hannah noticed the Professors Sinistra and Vector. "Apologies, I must discuss something in private." Another wizard she did not recognize stared over.</p><p>"Private discussions with students are not allowed. Hogwarts instructors were known to make inappropriate comments with underage students in their offices." She failed to conceal her scowl. <em>I don't care; it should be obvious that he's lying. Even fucking Snape was never accused of anything like that.</em></p><p>"Apologies, again, she hasn't heard her scores from her final last year. She's been aiding the people since then." Silence answered him. "She's used to discussing scores in private, and I believe a muffling charm would be a good compromise... for adjustment purposes."</p><p>"A while ago, I learned that a Hogwarts teacher had suggested the Inspections of Hogwarts," she started, having applied the muffling charm herself. "Because no one ever said his or her name, I always thought it was someone long since retired. It seemed like an odd thing to suggest, except from someone who might have known a dark wizard."</p><p>"I see, I see. That's quite the reasonable train of thought, but, well, it seems almost indecorous to mention that the point is moot with the school... gone. But, as they say, out with the old-"</p><p>"I don't think it's moot. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and I wanted to know why you suggested Hogwarts be turned upside down by Ministry officials every three years." In truth, she could not be certain he proposed the Inspections, but this would answer her question one way or the other.</p><p>"Well, my dear, it was quite a different time. You did not know Tom Riddle as I knew him- he was not Voldemort at the time; he was any other charming Slytherin, if from a humble background. There was a student, someone unrelated, yes, but he started asking me, his Head of House, of course- about a basilisk of all things. I said I didn't know anything about it, but he seemed convinced Lord Slytherin had one cooped up somewhere- can you imagine it? Well, it turned out to be true, but it sounded ridiculous, you know."</p><p>"How did..."</p><p>"Well, it had me a little worried, I must confess. There were a few other signs, here and there- but the point is I had enough of it, so I decided there needed to be more oversight regarding dark magic. A few of the other teachers agreed and well, the rest is history."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. The Estonian</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tõnisson was a harder wizard to catch than could be believed, but Draco managed it. His vassals had been researching the Estonian's followers for only a few days, but it was long enough to know their usual manner of speaking, and that he did not know who all of them were. <em>Easy enough to impersonate, if you have someone who will get the real ones out of the way.</em></p><p>"Niko, was it?" he asked. <em>I should allow him to believe he noticed me first. </em>"How is Šibenik this time of year?"</p><p>"Warmer, in a word. Nevertheless, there is no place so warm as the cavern few in these halls dare explore." The reference was crude in nature, but it saved itself with being sufficiently high-brow the likes of Weasley would never understand it.</p><p>"Your wit is as sharp as they say."</p><p>The pair of them walked outside, the biting wind making him thankful for the long mantle he wore, enchanted to stay mostly in place in the bellows of Zephyr. The pattern, black spots on a pearl white field, caught the eye of the older student.</p><p>"This is the latest from the kingdom, I presume?" he asked as they walked. "It has a natural look to it; leaves you room to put on your own airs."</p><p>"I favor traditional raiment, the better to honor my ancestors," Draco responded. <em>By the kingdom he refers to Dalmatia, a historical region of modern day Croatia. </em>"All the same, I find the unexpected of greater interest than the new."</p><p>As they walked, Tõnisson seemed to pass through the warding like a ghost; the Slytherin could hardly guess what he was doing with his wand. He made a mental note to request the books the older student had been reading at the library, but it would be like him to have studied it at home and never told anyone else. The Heir to the Malfoy line sighed internally. Perhaps he was a kindred spirit in that he cared about blood, but he divided the wizarding world on the wrong lines, and for that he was a better target than some of the other student leaders. The colors of the towers and their pointed domes had surprised him upon first seeing them; he had imagined a bleak fortress or something of that nature, but he had gained an appreciation for the school and its reflection of the rich history of the geographical area it served.</p><p>The girls' tower, tall and red with a mostly green dome was guarded by all manners of wards and curses. He understood he was being prevented from learning exactly how they worked, but there were only so many teachers, and only so many rooms, so he reasoned the wizards must be fishing from the same pond as the witches, though he never saw one. It was difficult to even envision how the system worked; the only thing he could imagine was that different versions of the school existed in the same place, and the door you used to get in would determine the version in which you existed. <em>There has to be some meaning to the fact that the teachers sleep in their homes in a neighboring town.</em></p><p>Whatever the explanation, the older student appeared content to circumvent it, scaling the outer wall of the tower, drawing his hand back and cursing in his own language. It was not the first time Draco was grateful to have achieved a fluency with Russian that he could hear English when someone spoke it, but all his magical training was for naught around nationalists like Tõnisson. He was not going to learn every single language in Eastern Europe when Durmstrang had an official language, in effect if not in writing.</p><p>"A new ward?" he asked, climbing after.</p><p>"They suspect me, nothing more. Perhaps Elisiv or Galina mean to test me." He waved his wand and his hand was able to slip under the ward. "The trick has not failed me yet."</p><p>"You truly must show me that at some point."</p><p>"Perhaps, Niko, and yet, perhaps not. I use wards like anyone else who would guard his possessions, and I fear more than you would become indebted to me."</p><p>The Slytherin scowled beneath him. His own possessions were cursed to make the thief unable to let go of them, and convey an electric charge either until the owner was satisfied, or the thieving hand came off. He had already charmed them to keep people from summoning or levitating them; that was elementary, even in the Lestrange vault the same protections were in order.</p><p>On the subject, the latest news from the island had been quite disturbing. The goblins had not moved the contents of Death Eater vaults out of the country, as requested, likely because they knew about the properties of the Philosopher's Stone. The Dark Lord had angered them greatly by undermining their system relying on the scarcity of gold. Consequently, they cooperated when the new Minister requested they open the vaults, using an old precedent passed a decade earlier regarding appropriations from war criminals. He had thought the goblins would have to be severely punished, but the Inner Circle apparently made no mention of it, suggesting it was a low priority.</p><p>The older student passed through a window above him after tapping each corner with his wand, muttering some nonsense in Estonian. Draco was in not long after, and it appeared they were on a spiral stair. The tower had a different interior design than the one reserved for wizards, though he suspected that was not the reason, since it was not as if the builders intended the palace to be used as a school. Following Tõnisson up the stairs, he had to swallow a bit of nervousness, surprising himself somewhat. It was not as if he were entirely inexperienced with the concept, if his relationship with Padma had reached a plateau. He decided it would be better not to explain this particular night to her, either in a letter or in person, should he ever see her again.</p><p>
  <em>All the same, should Davis serve her part in this, it will end up unnecessary.</em>
</p><p>What concerned him was that he could not see her anywhere. It had been difficult to so much as communicate with her, but after figuring that the students used the same classrooms, it was a matter of time before he started leaving notes in her desk. After confirming her identity several times over, it seemed she actually enjoyed the ability to talk with him as much as he was eager to relay the plan. She had eyes only for Evan, he was sure, but he supposed even witches would get tired of Bulstrode eventually. <em>She was supposed to be here- stunning him from behind was essential.</em></p><p>Though he did not truly like looking craven, he had seen for himself that their target was of formidable magical ability. Worse yet, he was clever and always on the lookout. He even suspected the girls in the tower of setting traps for him, if only to playfully test his resolve. Killing him would require more than the pristine luck of House Malfoy.</p><p>Two witches in white, hooded robes met them in the stairwell. One he recognized as Davis, the other could only be Galina Ravkov, since she was irreparably scarred on the lips. <em>So the plans have had to change. No matter, I shall adapt, as ever. The other witch can prove herself useful if she discovers our silent procession. </em>It seemed strange to him that no one spoke as they went up the stairs.</p><p>"You have never been here, yes?" asked the strange witch. According to Tõnisson, she made the marks on herself as a girl in the Białowieża Forest, one of the last primeval forests in the world, and the border between Poland and Belarus. Abandoned, with neither family nor country, she survived by natural magic, the one in a thousand magical children who managed it before dying.</p><p>"Never. I would have known had I seen your face before." She seemed to find it more amusing than the wizard who had brought him.</p><p>"You should see what I did to the rest of my body." She laughed, tossing her head and casting a look back. "Not that you will." He could not have said the way her mouth looked when she was laughing was more disturbing than the beauty that contrasted it. "No, as you are our guest, you will be taken to the Mistress's Room." He had heard of it. Apparently, the witches' tower used to have a mistress, just as the wizard's tower had a master, an adult to preside over concerns and disciplinary matters, akin to a Head of House. As punishments were increasingly replaced by expulsion or some threat or it, the position became vacant and both towers were left with a pair of mostly identical rooms they could access with an unlocking charm.</p><p>Davis was maintaining mental shields or ignoring him entirely. The latter seemed almost impossible, but he had no idea where she would have learned Occlumency. In either event, he reached out to his other option. <em>Bulstrode. Where are you?</em></p><p>The response was delayed, which made sense, as he had never contacted her with Legilimency before. <em>Draco- where are you? Are you in position?</em></p><p>
  <em>They're leading me up the stairs. It seems they have roped Davis in on their plan, meaning I can't rely on her to get Tõnisson in the back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Draco, I-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If you can't produce a killing curse, don't lose sleep over it- just stun him when he's not expecting it and put him out the window. I'll keep him distracted as long as necessary. If they get me in a room, it won't be too much trouble; I'll just stun whomever I find to be so unlucky.</em>
</p><p>He broke off the mental link. He would have to trust his remaining vassal, though there was some chance the other witch would come through after all. Reaching out to the other wizard with Legilimency, he effectively cast an undetectable Confunding Charm. Even magical children could detect when some sort of mental invasion was going on, and the idea of it would bother them. He had learned to have a light tough, distracting his enemies ever so slightly. The best part of it all was that he was veritably surrounded by plausible deniability.</p><p>"What is it that interests you about this arrangement?" he asked Galina, thinking it better to maintain the conversation, if after a pause. The Estonian seemed to regard it as a fair question, if one the answer to which he already knew.</p><p>"Niko, the Amazons are in a wizard's fantasy. They most likely never existed; they only served the purposes of the thought experiments for which they were created. The truth is that in such a large school, there will always exist a witch or two who desires the touch of a wizard who knows what he does." He turned to the witches in front of them. "As ever with our friend, her purposes are her own, yet I would imagine defiance of authority is her reason to live."</p><p>As if on cue, the authority took the form of an adult waiting on a landing. <em>Of course- any one of the witches in the tower might know about Tõnisson and his excursions- and more than enough of them would have reason to report him, if for no other than a better night of sleep.</em></p><p>Galina caused the unknown witch to fall asleep, speaking softly without moving her wand.</p><p>"She will not remember seeing us tomorrow morning." Draco maintained his focus on her mouth, unwilling to appear put off by it. "Consider your fortune that you have me with you." <em>Any one of us could have dealt with her, whoever she was. She lost the moment she decided we would not raise a wand against her. </em>Stepping over her sleeping form, he recognized her as the mind arts teacher. <em>Fitting.</em></p><p>He had taken the opportunity to intensify the confusion that the older wizard experienced, more careful to keep from being noticed than anything else.</p><p>"We're all aware," the Estonian intoned, rubbing his forehead. "It's nothing; I must be tired." The Slytherin resisted the temptation to smirk, not only to keep himself on guard. He was trying to deceive a wizard he knew to be at least as clever as he. The situation seemed microcosmic of the implicit conflict between the Dark Lord and the Inner Circle.</p><p>An unexpected update had come a few days ago, from Bole of all people. The Department Head of Magical Law Enforcement was due to be replaced with someone more in agreement with Crouch's policies. Draco remembered scowling internally. He had hoped that their minions at the lowest level would keep the worst of the new government's policies from reaching the remaining pure families in Britain, but it seemed the new wizard, Scrimgeour, would either replace them or throw them in whatever they were using as a prison. The weakness, the passivity inherent in the course on which the Lord Voldemort insisted irked him, it would enrage him if he allowed it, but his primary concern, his own chagrin be damned, was the fate of the minions.</p><p>For centuries, since time immemorial, their humble families had sworn fealty to the great lords and ladies of Britain, of Europe, of the magical world. His father had taken him to see one such little house, and his initial impression was one of pity; for all his efforts he could think of no reason that he had seen them other than to be reminded of his fortune. They bowed deeply before showing him and his father the property they kept in order with their own magic, the wife severing and levitating herbs from the parvile garden in the back, a wand in one hand and a nursing babe in the other. The man in the house was doing a reasonably good job of concealing his vain desire that the lord and his son had announced their visit a fortnight earlier, but at a momentary loss of what to say, he showed them a family tree, going back at least a century or two. He had nothing, he could do nothing, and yet his blood was as pure as it could be. He was quite proud.</p><p>When Draco at last asked his lord father what the point of the excursion had been, if there was anything of academic note to be gained from the awkward experience, a thin smile momentarily existed on the older wizard's face. He was quite clear that in time, seeing the loyalty of the good and humble rustics, seeing the purpose and pride that their station brought them, would be its own reward. Perhaps the young Slytheirn would understand when he was older.</p><p>Walking with company and yet impossibly alone, he was older and he did understand. Without his resources, his allies, and his family, he would have to rely on his own magic, his own wit, and his own blood, the power forged in centuries of conflict, external and internal. The minions, whom he had regarded as expendable fodder, perhaps were fodder yet, but he would be damned if he saw their lives go to waste for nothing. As part of their punishment, the Death Eaters were essentially not talking to him or any of his vassals, but if they ever received word about anything, the words were the same. <em>Trust the Dark Lord. Stay the course.</em></p><p>Keeping his wits about him as he remembered the amulet around his neck, he was confident he would survive a surprise curse, except for a killer of course. He had not lured his target into murky waters without being prepared to deal with them himself, but there would be no convenient arrangement of stars to save him this time if his chances started to sour. In the celestial coordinate system, the school had been built in something of a dead zone, as he learned from his nocturlabe, which had a face specifically for sidereal time.</p><p>"Perhaps I should introduce to you the witches who have come this evening." It was Galina's voice again. Davis was not usually a talkative sort like Parkinson, but she had never been this taciturn. Draco ignored the names as they were rattled off. There were six of them in total, which was fair enough for a whole tower, and they had all agreed to be memory charmed if not chosen. It was a particularly ingenious device of Tõnisson's, this way there would be no feeling of rejection if more than enough turned out, but the winner would always know she was chosen over the others. It would also not do to have rumors circulating about sleeping with strange wizards, even if they knew what they were doing. The older student had the testicular heft, either literally or metaphorically, to select two of the six, one of whom the Slytherin hit with a wave of mental anguish, prying up a painful memory.</p><p>"One moment, please..." she said, allowing the Estonian to go into the room without her. The other witch who was selected was suddenly developing nerves, and seemed inclined to ask after her companion's general state of being, multiple times. At some length she said she was fine again, that it was nothing, but stopped short of the door as it opened from the other side.</p><p>Millicent Bulstrode walked out.</p><p>"What's a witch to do when she wants a decent night's rest?" she asked, rolling her eyes. Her clothing was somewhat disheveled. <em>A nice touch, if it wanders from the realm of being believable.</em></p><p>"Perhaps your regular arrangement would-" Galina started.</p><p>"Was this your idea? Tracey, come on."</p><p>Davis remained in place. <em>It's no issue, really. She might have lied her way into this job, and now finds herself unable to lie her way out of it. </em>No one said anything for a moment, but the witches selected by the older wizard would not wait all night. Opening the door, they were only gone a moment when they returned.</p><p>"My, my..." Draco commented, trying to lighten the mood somewhat.</p><p>"He's not moving."</p><p>"Oh- well, it's not to worry. Bulstrode's a big girl, but she's harmless." He had a thought to slap himself silly, considering he might have just quoted the Care of Magical Creatures teacher. "If he's stunned and I find myself unable to wake him, I'll take him back. In either event, there is no need to worry." Entering the room quietly, he noticed an open window and his vassal following him inside.</p><p>"It's well we discussed the plan with Bulstrode." Looking around, she must have gone off somewhere, true to character. <em>It would have fit the disguise better had I not acknowledged that I know her. They likely already suspect who I really am. </em>At any rate, the open window meant that the wizard was not merely stunned, but dead. She would have waited under the bed, disabled him in some way, and levitated him out before he knew what was going on. <em>He was an excellent duelist, to be sure, but a wizard is never quite on guard in these circumstances.</em></p><p>The body on the bed was conjured, a trick he set Davis to learning a few weeks ago; the other one must have picked it up around the same time. Vanishing it, he made himself guilty for the crime, being the last to see Tõnisson alive. He would have to stun his own vassal if he wanted her to be free of suspicion, though it would be associated to her anyway. He sat down on the bed to think, to plan his next move. <em>It went as well as we could have hoped, given my error in judgement with Davis, unless she wanted Bulstrode to take her place. Her improvised plan worked, and it was clever enough, but the central problem is that no one would believe even a womanizer like Tõnisson would take advantage of her, especially not when he expected two beautiful witches to join him shortly.</em></p><p>He distracted himself a moment, wondering if a witch had to qualify in any way for Galina, who seemed to oversee the arrangement on her end. <em>I still have no idea what she gets out of it. </em>It hardly seemed a coincidence that all six of those who appeared for the evening were at least relatively attractive, even Davis and Galina- <em>Why were they dressed the same? Did she volunteer to help her to see what the end goal was? </em>He usually tried to have a reasonable guess at the answer before asking his vassals a question, and he supposed this one qualified.</p><p>"Davis, did you join in the arrangement to learn how-"</p><p>Her only answer was her long white robe dropping to the floor.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Rendezvous at Hogsmeade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ron wanted nothing more than to take the small company to the Ministry to scout the place out, but he had a prior engagement. Mafalda's letter from her parents told her to come home earlier than expected, as the Irish had opened up a small school in defiance of the Ministry. He supposed it was no surprise they would start to interest themselves with separatism again; a regime change in Britain was just the excuse they needed to inflame even those who had been in favor of being under the same magical government. <em>It's better that she goes... no one knows she was with us, and she's still a second-year.</em></p>
<p>He had already told as much to Harper, who seemed to remember his going up against Death Eaters at the same age. They were also on opposing sides in that conflict, as long as it lasted. <em>It's the same conflict; he's just not worth anything to his old friends. If the damn feudalists are right about one thing, it's that you always kill a traitor before the enemy.</em></p>
<p>Taking his three subordinates to Hogsmeade might have served some purpose in getting them to see him as a leader, and perhaps it was better than training them in London, the panopticon of the Ministry. He had explained to them all the necessary details about meeting Susan, giving himself the right to decide what details were necessary and what details he could keep to himself. He wanted them to think, of course, but they needed reason to turn to him, especially in the early stages. He had nothing resembling the time he needed to 'discipline' them, to break them down, or to build them back up after that. <em>I couldn't be some kind of absolutely authoritative leader if I tried.</em></p>
<p>Taking stock of his units, he was grateful for their abilities. Lovegood had started learning the mind arts, and while she had not mastered it, she was indisputably valuable, especially as talk was starting of mass-Legilimency, though that sounded mad. Harper was about as good in combat as he was, and he knew a few more curses. Missing a year of school and being a year behind was a clear disadvantage, but apparently Anthony did not let them slack off in Africa. Macmillan's magical expertise was varied, it seemed he had an interest in the least interesting concepts, and a litany of questions for the Slytherin about all the flora and fauna where he had been hiding out. If Ron understood anything about him, though, that would not be the extent of his worth to the small company. <em>I reckon that at the worst of times, we'll find a use for a smooth talker.</em></p>
<p>They arrived by Apparation. It was basically the only magical skill he had been learning since before the schism, and after a few botched attempts alone, he made sure he never had that wrong before trying with anyone else. His longest trip to date had been taking Mafalda to Belfast. He went alone first, then took Harper, then Macmillan, then Lovegood. They had gone over the plan countless times, and presently they moved quickly from cover point to cover point, stopping at every major intersection. He had expected to run into more law enforcement, being so close to Hogwarts, but he might have overestimated their interest in the wizarding village. <em>The old teachers prob'ly don't still live here, not that I would know where they went.</em></p>
<p>The Shrieking Shack would provide them with a view of the whole village, but only he would be going there. He could apparate and the Ravenclaw could keep him in a mental link, so she would stay close to the others as they explored on foot. He had to assume Susan would only be able to meet them for a limited time, if she had to escape by the skin of her teeth. He tried to make things easy on her, giving her far in advance to plan a trip to Hogsmeade, come up with excuses, and whatever else. He might have said it was all because he wanted everything to be successful, but the truth was he valued her decision to stay out of it, if that was still what she was doing. It always seemed to him and Hannah that she leaned toward the mad Hufflepuffs to protect herself, but they would hardly appreciate her tepid loyalty. For having associated with traitors, they would always keep her on a short leash.</p>
<p>
  <em>I think I see her- unless that's someone else with an interest in the Mokele Mbembe reading a copy of the Quibbler.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Dammit, Lovegood, how do you know she has an interest in... whatever that is?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That's the story Daddy's running this week. There have been multiple sightings in the French West.</em>
</p>
<p>Ron was trying to get a better vantage point, but one of the buildings must have been blocking his view. He had to consider the possibility they had never interacted before and would not recognize each other.</p>
<p>
  <em>What does she look like?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, she isn't your type.</em>
</p>
<p>Not waiting any longer, he apparated to the position the other three had taken, in an alley between The Three Broomsticks and some kind of Quidditch surplus store. Harper pointed with his wand at the target matching the description, auburn hair in a plait down her back and, well, a feminine figure.</p>
<p>"That'll be Susan," he muttered. "Can't rule out the chance she's being watched, so we'll wait for her to find a place to wait for us." <em>Well, she's only expecting me to be here. In either case, it doesn't seem she's got a portkey for getting back.</em> Keeping his wits about him, he watched as she started looking around in alleys, either figuring he was hiding or looking for a place to hide herself.</p>
<p>Motioning to the troops, they split up. The goal was not to corner and frighten the target, it was to look out for people watching them from all sides, to keep any outside force from attacking them or her. Harper walked across the courtyard, Lovegood and Macmillan went around the backs of buildings, while he apparated to her position directly, landing right behind her. Susan nearly fainted as soon as she turned around. <em>Might not have been the best approach.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>No eyes on us?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There are Nargles everywhere, Ron, they're-</em>
</p>
<p>He took the Hufflepuff's hand and apparated to the Shrieking Shack, going back for his company one by one while they maintained a lookout. It was impossible to overstate the strategic advantage presented by apparation and the mind arts; he only wished there had been some way of learning it all years ago. Both skills would make one man worth fifty, other things equal. <em>The problem with learning either of them years ago was the warding at Hogwarts. They didn't catch Malfoy's Legilimency, but that was only after Dumbledore died. Even when he thought there were no Inspectors in the school, he prob'ly did a sweep for any students using the mind arts every so often. </em>As little as he would have liked using the same methods, he was always against people's minds being invaded, so the rule against using it had to have teeth.</p>
<p>The five of them were quiet for a moment in the ruined little tower.</p>
<p>"Where did you learn Apparation?" Susan asked.</p>
<p>"They used to have Ministry people at Hogwarts to teach sixth years how to do it, but that wasn't because we needed their help, they just wanted a hand on the broomstick handle. It's not uncommon, or it wasn't, to go abroad for a year or so, or to transfer out entirely, so if you really wanted, you could learn the whole thing yourself from a book."</p>
<p>"Why don't more people do it that way?"</p>
<p>"It's illegal. You can also splitch yourself, so it's better to have a Healer nearby. If you can't do that, you have to get it right the first try, and getting it right the first try is basically impossible. I studied until my eyes were going to the back of my head and I still lost some skin and hair, but that's nothing, really. I kept trying until I never got anything about it even slightly wrong."</p>
<p>His explanation seemed to satisfy her desire to make neutral conversation. It appeared Lovegood had a question for her, but he was not about to let the subject change into whatever mad creature she thought was real.</p>
<p>"How's Hannah doing?" he asked. "Do you know where they're keeping her?"</p>
<p>The Hufflepuff witch exhaled, an almost-laugh.</p>
<p>"They're keeping her in the same prison they're keeping me. They've got wards all over her to keep her from leaving the Ministry school."</p>
<p>"They let her out of prison, then."</p>
<p>"A Death Eater gambled and lost is how she puts it. I asked, but she would not tell me in greater detail."</p>
<p>"That wasn't what she wanted to tell us."</p>
<p>"No. There was something more important than that." Ron's eyes drifted over to the Ravenclaw. She shook her head. <em>Looks like it's not someone else in disguise after all. She's been telling the truth the whole time. </em>"Horace Slughorn knew You Know Who when he was in school."</p>
<p>"The timing is about right," Harper volunteered. "My great aunt was in Hogwarts around then." Macmillan, unusually, was silent. <em>Well, we don't have a lot of time.</em></p>
<p>"She doesn't know everything yet. It feels like there's something he isn't telling her." Susan sighed. "That's why I have to go back. I have to get the rest of it..."</p>
<p>"Telling us what you have now would be making the best of our current situation," the other Hufflepuff inserted. "The enemy did not come from nowhere, and not from nowhere can we build our case in the trial of war." <em>He's not mentioning the other enemy, but that's because he knows what he's doing. Susan doesn't know he's become a leper or would if he ever went back. He's lending credibility to us.</em></p>
<p>The now annoyed Slytherin had suggested the use of the mind arts to interrogate the witch and then send her on her way, but alienating her was a bad idea and Lovegood expressed doubt in her ability to reliably get information in real time. She could tell if something someone said a minute earlier was a lie, so that was what he asked her to do.</p>
<p>"Professor Slughorn was concerned about dark magic," she said at length. "There was a student, one of his own, who was asking about Slytherin's Monster. The myth about the Chamber had been around for centuries, so of course people had looked for it in the past. The prevailing theory was that it either did not exist or had been sealed away with the darkest of magic. Salazar Slytherin was not known for using it, but it could have been discovered by an admirer as well."</p>
<p>"Why was the student asking about it?" Ron asked. <em>Can't have been Voldemort. She'd have said.</em></p>
<p>"It isn't quite clear, but apparently he had a pet theory it was a basilisk and had always wanted to run into something like-"</p>
<p>"Hagrid." Hermione might have produced a frustrated groan. They took Care of Magical Creatures at least one year, but even before that, the Gryffindor had been aware that the teacher of that class regarded the most dangerous creatures as the most interesting. "He'd have given it up at some point; he's not going to waste his time on a myth when there were real creatures around like Acromantulae." It had been a long time since their conversation about the unicorns and whatever was killing them, but he remembered the Keeper of Keys telling him that he had been sorted into Slytherin. He maintained that there was never a wizard who went dark who was not in that House, but it definitely did not work the other way around- for Ron, that had been one of his greatest lessons that whole year.</p>
<p>"There were other signs. There were a few other students that year and the next, but only one stands out in his memory after all these years," Susan continued. "It was the excitement in the young wizard's eyes, some kind of painful naivety... Professor Slughorn doubted the wisdom of the Sorting Hat. There was no doubt his student had ambition. He had too much of it, even... but putting him in Slytherin surrounded him with people who wanted him dead for what he was."</p>
<p>The Potions instructor never struck Ron as an honest man, but he could see the truth in his words even as they were being relayed to him. <em>Those chickenshit bastards... never had the stones to go after him, but it's a damn wonder he went to prison. The second he was suspected of anything, he didn't have a chance in Hell. </em>He had an urge to punch a wall- or something. No, there was no urge his rage produced so specific, there was no innate desire to do any such thing; it was a tradition of men who wished to contain themselves, a futile effort to drain the rage, a successful one to replace it for a moment with a flare of pain in the fist.</p>
<p>The truth was, he had been through the same thing, and in first year- the other wizards of Gryffindor turned against him when they learned a coward had been sorted into their noble House. <em>Lucky I was never accused of murder- every last one of them would have told anyone who'd listen I talked to myself when I slept. Lucky all I had to deal with that year was fucking Voldemort.</em></p>
<p>"Ron?" Macmillan asked. "Something on your mind?" It was less personal than he was asking if he were alright.</p>
<p>"Fuck the fucking hat," he muttered, looking back to Susan. "He wouldn't have suspected Hagrid of dark magic, just bringing back the past. Might've mentioned in one of his stupid classes it was the duty of every pure blood to stamp out the past, which was why they needed networks, they needed to be able to rely on each other, the hypocritical bastard- no, he was just playing both sides. Cross another one off the list; it's another damn day I never thought I'd see." He sighed. "That's how the Inspections started, isn't it?"</p>
<p>"This is where it gets into speculation," the Hufflepuff witch admitted. "Hannah does not know everything, and he's been making himself scarce-"</p>
<p>"He knows she's one side he doesn't want to play," Harper muttered, smirking. "If you could even call it a side."</p>
<p>"You need to get back before someone starts to get suspicious," Ron said. "We'll come up with our own speculation."</p>
<p>"You need to hear this."</p>
<p>"What?" he asked as Susan stood up. By the fact that she was separating herself from the others, he inferred it was only he who needed to hear it. He gulped, guessing that it was something that scared him in a different way. <em>Actually, I reckon I could go for that right about now. </em>The witch stopped in the hallway. The wizard trusted Lovegood to refrain from using the mind arts, except for a regular sweep of the area.</p>
<p>"She told me to tell you in her exact words."</p>
<p>"All right."</p>
<p>"I want to make it work. There's so much we need to do to make it work, but I trust you and I know it will be worth it. Please, please don't come rescue me. I've been desperate for any news from outside and I heard that you and Hermione are both wanted, but Terry's presumed dead. I know he hasn't been arrested, and I can't imagine he would die just yet. You need to find him."</p>
<p>"I'll do it," he said, responding to the first thing he could find the words to address. "I don't know where they took him, but we need to be going there anyway." <em>Macmillan's going to be pretty damn peeved if we derail our other plans- </em>"Tell her I trust her too," he added at some length. Perhaps the witch of auburn hair could tell he was having trouble coming up with what could possibly his last message to Hannah. "Tell her I think she's worth being rescued any day of the week."</p>
<p>"I can get back on my own if I can get to London. I... saw you apparate a moment ago." <em>More like I dragged you along. Well, might as well make a habit out of it.</em></p>
<p>"I'll take you to Knockturn Alley. It's not being watched as closely as the rest of the city, last I checked."</p>
<p>The pair of them reappeared in the back of an old shop, where he had once ducked for cover on a surveillance mission, thankful he did not have Mafalda with him at the time. His thoughts turning to her, he could only hope she was going to stay in the Irish school for the whole term. He knew how to get in contact with her if he needed her; she had insisted on it, even, but it would be a long time before his need for her in the company eclipsed his concern for her. <em>Prob'ly shouldn't keep protecting her... definitely can't keep it up forever.</em></p>
<p>"Just take that back way over there; curse anyone who looks at you more than a second, no one'll see you come out in the old creature shop."</p>
<p>"Thanks."</p>
<p>He was back before he saw her leave. Strangely, however, he did not see the others when he returned to the room where he had left them. <em>Lovegood- where are you? </em>There was no response. <em>Must not be reaching out at this point- doesn't realize I'm back yet. </em>Casting the footprint revealing charm in the dust, he was happy to learn they left on their feet, if it was not the best of circumstances. <em>Must've had no choice. I'll regroup with them.</em></p>
<p>As perhaps he should have expected, the footprints led down the shack to the dark tunnel that went to the school grounds. He knew he had told them that the castle's ruin would be heavily monitored, as the location might serve as a rallying point, so assuming they had not gone round the bend, they had a good reason for charging into such an area. It occurred to him that the Ravenclaw could at least do a sweep for threats, which should help guide them out of harm's way, and that that very ability might have been what drove them out of their hiding place.</p>
<p>Ron surfaced at the tree, immobilizing it quickly. He had not thought to tell them about the knot in the trunk; it did not in any way enter his mind. Looking in all directions, it seemed unlikely they went to the ruin, but he saw no other place to go. Keeping his head on a swivel as he cleared the grounds, he noticed there was clear smoke coming out of Hargid's hut. <em>It won't be visible from miles away, but if anyone's physically here, they might see it. </em>The door was open. <em>He's outside, has to be around here somewhere.</em></p>
<p>Without slowing his pace, he reached the run and took cover behind what was left of a wall before looking past it. <em>Blimey. Never realized how big the damn foundation was- the dungeons went deep underground...</em></p>
<p>"Lovegood!" he whispered as loudly as he dared, seeing a flash of blonde hair.</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, hi, Ron. We figured you would catch up to us.</em>
</p>
<p><em>There aren't any hostiles? </em>He was hoping he could rely on her... relaxed tone of voice for a change.</p>
<p><em>Oh, we don't expect there to be any, apart from some stray Ululators in the area. </em>He surfaced from cover, finding the small company standing around in the ruin.</p>
<p>"Did you see something? Why did you leave your post?" he asked, resisting the urge to chew them out right away. <em>There better have been a damn good reason if there weren't any hostiles.</em></p>
<p>"Well, we have reason to believe someone's been coming here," Macmillan said. He heard the sound of heavy footsteps.</p>
<p>"Was it the smoke?"</p>
<p>"That was but one reason," the Hufflepuff continued, as a familiar, large figure came out from behind a pile of rubble. "The other is ineffable. A quintessential charm of the school, a familiarity of the castle and grounds is lost... it..."</p>
<p>"It doesn' quite feel like home anymore, Ron," Hagrid said. "Been tryin' ter figure out why."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Owl Post, Controlled</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The odd letter from Luna Lovegood of all people was the least of Hermione's present concerns. Her mental shields were holding against a pair of students, but she knew that if they broke through, they could cause a migraine that would floor her. She had not been expecting to be accepted by everyone, but being assaulted in class was surprising to say the least. She managed to hold out until the end of class, but looking around the room had not narrowed down who her attacker could be in the slightest, as they were all looking at their notes and listening to the instructor.</p><p>Keeping her head about her as class ended, she resolved to read the letter as soon as she could, but keeping up her defenses was a top priority, especially since the Ravenclaw might have been sending her sensitive information. <em>It's suspicious that she would know where to send it, unless she's been in touch with Cho or her parents. That seems unlikely, but you never know with her.</em></p><p>Her mental shields were not nearly where she wanted them to be; studying for class was a full-time job, even with help from Shuan. Leizu and Yukun were willing to study with her, and had an elementary understanding of Occlumency, but the Canadian-born wizard had a way of putting things that helped, to say the least. She also enjoyed his company somewhat more. <em>Even if I can understand and get along with other girls better than a few years ago, it isn't as if I'm just going to be interested in all the same things. </em>He knew little of the mind arts, unfortunately, but he knew how not to make a target of himself, which is what he said it generally took.</p><p>"I just try to keep the fact that I came from somewhere else quiet, you know?" he said during break. "I mean, for you, it's not so easy, and I'd think most people would want to know what you thought, unfiltered, because you'd have a unique perspective."</p><p>"I hadn't thought of it that way. Perhaps I'll be honored the next time someone tries to rifle through my secrets." In truth, she had not thought of it that way. The information the Chinese students would be getting about what was happening in the rest of the world would be filtered, while she had spent almost all her life outside of that bubble. By examining her mind directly, they could get past any lies she might tell to make the situation look better or worse, and they could gain the information without being noticed by teachers, ministers, or other students. To them, her brain was a banned book just sitting out in the open.</p><p>She got to the letter at night, using a ward to illuminate the page rather than her wand. She doubted her mental shields were strong enough to repel anyone actively using Legilimency, but she would at least know if that happened and be able to stop reading.</p><p>
  <em>Dear Hermione,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How does this letter find you? I have always been most interested in the land of China, specifically as the last refuge of the Deluminator Plant, also known as the...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>... in either case, there have been some interesting developments at the ruin of Hogwarts. We'll forgive Mr. Hagrid for not understanding the wards, but it appears that someone has been working on them. He has been hearing the distinctive 'cracking' sound attributed to Apparation, and close enough to the castle that he suspects the wards preventing it are no longer active.</em>
</p><p>The brunette witch lowered the letter, scanning the four beds around her. Everyone was asleep. <em>It's a reasonable observation for Luna. She keeps using the word 'we', suggesting there are others with her, though. She might be referring to Ron or Mafalda, since they're doing this rather than going to school. It still doesn't explain how she knew where to send this letter. </em>She decided to keep reading.</p><p>
  <em>We need to examine the wards further, but I decided it was better that you knew. Based on our tests so far, it seems all of the castle's protection warding has been disabled, but not removed entirely, because we can still see it. We have detected a weakness in the wards that appears older than the ruin, which may mean it contributed to the school falling. Other wards appear to have been laid more recently than that.</em>
</p><p>Hermione put down the letter again, tempted to perform a selective memory charm on herself. She could not quite have complete faith in her ability to repel mental invasions, meaning she could not afford to be thinking about wards. It was not as if they were a totally banned subject, but thoughts of it would catch the watchful eyes of the ministers, and suspicion always followed suspicion. Whenever a suspect did something, there was a way of interpreting it as suspicious behavior.</p><p>A few years ago, she was on holiday with her parents in Paris, where her father said she should probably not ignore the cameras, since he noticed she was looking away from their lenses. It was better not to pretend like they did not exist, since most people did notice them, and when they saw them they usually either stared for a moment or waved, while people who turned out to be guilty of crimes would pretend not to notice.</p><p>"At the same time..." her mother started. "I can hardly think of anything more suspicious than smiling and waving at every single camera you see. I mean, that means you know all about the cameras, and you know how you're meant to react." The witch sitting between them was annoyed at the notion, but said nothing. Being suspected of a crime was one thing, since at least one could prove herself innocent if it came down to that; what was impossible to escape was being suspected of criminal thinking.</p><p>Classes the following day featured blessed few attempts to invade her mind, but it did nothing to get her off her guard. <em>How do people stand this? Are their mental shields really that good? They have to realize they'll be studying night and day if they ever want to keep the ministers from their secrets. </em>She tried asking Leizu about it in the few minutes between classes.</p><p>"如果你低头，低头低头。"</p><p>"换句话说，某处一定有错误，" Hermione responded, answering a proverb with another. She understood the meaning of the other student's position, 'if you bow, bow low'; it was something she had been practicing for months. She had gone out of her way to give people no reason to suspect her of anything, but it was not the futility of her efforts in the strength of the magic surrounding her that the witch addressed, it was the fact that they made themselves useless by nature. Walking into an imperial court with a single vertebra on top of another would raise questions as to why they were not all parallel to the ground. The British witch would not be surprised to find that it was a saying in common use whenever someone raised the subject.</p><p>She knew her own response was a snide one, citing a proverb literally meaning 'in a group of many words, somewhere there is a mistake'. She knew how it would be interpreted, that no Fa or nomenklatura or whatever they were calling it these days could be perfect. The saying was generally a justification for doubt in any system, any rule, and any decision that would come down from an initial mistake. It seemed doubtful that Leizu would bother telling anyone about her justification of resistance to authority; if she had any faith in the ministers, a threat to their standards was hardly something they needed her help quashing. Yukun appeared to be of a different disposition than her friend, so she tried asking her at lunch what she did to secure her mind.</p><p>"我抵制心中的男孩们，" the Chinese witch started back. "这很容易。" <em>Well, that's one possible interpretation of my question. </em>She had basically said she knew enough to keep the boys from reading her innermost thoughts.</p><p>"帝国大臣并不容易，" she responded, clarifying that her concern was about the authorities, generally of greater skill in Legilimency than a magical peeping tom. <em>The die is cast, as someone I know would say, if he knew history as well as he needs to know it.</em></p><p>"我知道，" the other girl responded, developing an annoyed look. "此时的阻力似乎很愚蠢。 生活一直都是这样。 到底有什么意义？" These words were more difficult to translate, requiring Hermione to focus. <em>Resistance seems silly at this point. Life has always been like this. What's the point, anyway? </em>She sighed. What seemed stupid was coming all the way to Magical China and expecting some kind of autonomy. It was like going to the Congo and expecting cool weather.</p><p>As a child, she tended to put herself in other people's shoes, imagining her own responses to their different circumstances. It at least seemed most likely that the people of any country would revolt when a man was run over by a tank, and that if they did not revolt, it was only because they were in chains or had guns to their backs at all times. While her mental images were on the right track about the measurements of authority the state took in such regimes, what she had not considered was that the world was full of different kinds of people with different preferences for systems, whether economic or political. In school she was sometimes challenged to place herself in some circumstance, usually a historical setting or a fictional book, the better to understand what it was like for those within it.</p><p>She latched onto an idea, unwilling to let it go even as her next class started. Animating the brush to take sub-par notes for her, she got out a sheet of paper and scribbled out her ideas under the desk. <em>Context... context, we try to put ourselves in other contexts to see what we make of it, but what we make of another context comes from our own... To wear another's shoes one may walk in them, but we need remember that they also choose their shoes... </em>Her thoughts were cluttered and she was sure there were at least a few people staring, but she knew she was onto something, something important.</p><p><em>It's most likely best to get back to it later. I need to keep my mental shields up most whenever people can see me. </em>Taking notes properly, she resolved to pass off what she had been scribbling before as something unrelated that she was doing at the last minute, as well as to thank her classmates for the insight they provided. Perhaps they did not realize what kind of train of thought they inspired, but that was just as well. Hermione momentarily considered refraining from untangling her thoughts by continuing to write them down exactly as they were, but if it fooled anyone clever, they would only think her mad.</p><p>The rest of Luna's letter needed to be read, and her train of thought needed be not lost, but before either of those, she would have to strengthen her shields. When the group was still whole, she had tasked Hannah with exploring it for the rest of them, leaving her with the recommended resource for young readers. <em>I also let her get captured with it... I just cannot keep having a pang of guilt every time I think of her.</em></p><p>The inefficiencies of having feelings like a normal human aside, she got her notes together to be teleported to the next class. As long as she had been in the school, there had been literally nothing concerning magical creatures, at least not beyond their uses in potions, which was highly theoretical. For a reason she had not been told, they were not allowed to practice brewing or keep potions, though she had to guess it was because the warding could not detect them. Even with what little she knew about the theory, it seemed genuinely impossible; there was no way of targeting a diverse array of liquids in containers. It momentarily caught her eye when an adult wizard appeared in the corner of the room, but she had to focus to keep up with her notes.</p><p>From time to time instructors would have things to say to students, which seemed so surprisingly... <em>normal </em>in the strange world where she had found herself. <em>Well, the strange world in which I take refuge from a government that's actively trying to put me in a cell, if I'm that lucky. </em>As little as she liked leaving her friend to her fate, it seemed unlikely the witch was even still alive, and there was no point in going after a ghost. Terry was even less likely to have survived, as he was captured by Death Eaters, who hardly left record of such things. Perhaps it was the colder, more calculating part of her mind that was telling her that, but it was the truth.</p><p>Not for the first time, it occurred to her that to everyone around her, she was the stranger from a strange land.</p><p>"How are things in Canada?" she asked Shuan at break. It was essentially her only chance to see him, as well as her only chance to get her thoughts in order. She had an idea that she would be less frequently attacked with Legilimency while talking with someone, because people would make the reasonable presumption she was thinking of what she spoke, and if she spoke loudly enough for others to hear, most practitioners of the mind arts would assume she was saying nothing of interest. If they felt like it, she could even discuss state secrets, as long as they discussed them in English, though that was assuming that literally no one knew it, which was most likely false.</p><p>"Well, to give you an idea, when people talk about the place, they're talking about a small corridor of cities, you know? You've got the farmers and the First Nations way out in the great white north, but you could go your whole life without seeing someone else." Hermione nodded. Things were essentially the same in Magical Britain, with essentially one urban population, and a small amount of rustics. Wizarding human geography was a little more extreme in terms of concentration because of the simultaneous effort to hide itself and the advantage of Apparation, or at least some form of instantaneous travel.</p><p>"Do you learn about the natives and their magic in school?"</p><p>"We did in first year, actually, but the older students said it was optional after that. Basically, they didn't agree with the idea of Secrecy." The Ravenclaw was familiar with the history. It was not as if the Statute made everything happen overnight; there was widespread support for it and a sufficiently low population that many muggles already did not believe in magic when it was passed. For the wizards who colonized the Americas, Secrecy was a tradition, and a wise precaution, and in their thinking, the naturals were ruining it for them, practicing magic to defend their land. It was hard to expect them to do anything else, to be sure, but the consequence was that the normal people were justified in their fear of magic, and in their belief that they had come to the devil's land, where all manners of things they had chased out of the civilized world ran rampant. The conquering wizards could only stop the natives from practicing in front of muggles by killing their shamans and medicine men, chasing them far to the west before their nonmagical relations were forced out after them.</p><p>The chief advantage the white wizards had was literacy. Since the magical natives lived among the nonmagical, their abilities essentially replaced many technologies they would have developed had they lived separately. Someone who knew more about the subject could probably tell her how they educated each other and passed knowledge on to the young, because quills and parchment were unnecessary. Their knowledge of warding, however, was quite primitive and they could be easily kept out of territory by teams of wizards placing down ward for miles, but some unknown magic allowed them to get past it; they were suspected of possessing muggles and using them to kill people, resulting in more innocent deaths when the formerly possessed were executed.</p><p>It was around then the magical colonists decided more aggressive strategies were necessary, some of them bold enough to forgo Secrecy themselves. The passage of the Statute, however, gave them an argument, that they were enforcing the international law. Hermione sighed. She reminded herself she was reading the official version of history, though if she asked Malfoy, he would likely concur except to add that the muggles really were catching and killing wizards, at least every so often, and the primary reason the magical natives had to die was because wizardkind feared exposure, which only made sense if muggles were a threat.</p><p>"I've heard," she said, her tone neutral. "So their magic served to give them unique positions within their tribes. In the same way as there were hunters who were the best at hunting, there were dreamwalkers that were the best at entering dreams. We get a brief overview of what they could do in History, but it never went into the theory."</p><p>"Wasn't written down. Even now I don't think there's anyone who knows all that much of it." He adopted a distant look. "I guess it makes sense to assume there's someone out there who still knows it, or there must be, since there are books about it, but they're keeping themselves hidden from the rest of the wizarding world. It's actually a lot like how we keep ourselves hidden from muggles, you know?"</p><p>"You said something about shamans. Did the First Nations have access to what might have been called a spirit world?" It felt odd asking about it. <em>Ron would be taunting me about stereotypes being real.</em></p><p>"That's the theory for how they taught the kids. Even before the diseases wiped a lot of them out, there would have been some kids who didn't have anyone they could ask to teach them. If you think about it, it's got to be a big spirit world since they can't have all been living in the same place. They'd never have fought." The Ravenclaw could begin to see where he was getting the idea, but being permanently united with one's ancestors could also perpetuate conflicts. <em>Of course, it's most likely that only those with magic ended up there, if anything I have out of Terry is accurate.</em></p><p>"Shuan... our time is almost up here, and there are so many questions I still have... but this is one of personal interest. When the tribes fought, did the shamans side with their families, or each other?" There was a pause. She did not know what she hoped the answer would be.</p><p>"There aren't written records of it." She knew, however, that was not something she had wanted to hear. "If I knew, I'd..." He looked over his shoulder. "Oh, it's 龙-老师; looks like he's back from his trip to the palace." Hermione caught sight of the adult wizard she saw in class earlier. Lóng-Laoshī, the second part being the word for teacher, was in charge of classes on Shu, essentially war-divination. "Seems you recognize him."</p><p>"I saw him earlier. He appeared behind us in class..."</p><p>"Well, that can only mean one thing." He sighed. "It really was nice knowing you. I don't get to speak English very often, and it's nice every now and then, eh?"</p><p>"This isn't funny, Shuan-"</p><p>"Well, no, not particularly, not for you anyway. Say, what were your treasonous thoughts before they drag you away?" He held up a hand. "No, on second thought, don't tell me. It's better for me not to know, obviously." She hit him with a stinging hex under the table. "Oh, come on, you know I was joking. You even said it." Despite his reassurance, it appeared the wizard was coming their way. <em>All I can do is raise my shields as well- </em>Her thoughts were interrupted by a sentence she was hastily trying to translate. Her mind was trying to process more than she liked at once, but her expectations practically translated for her.</p><p>"農戰可避，而官爵可得 也。"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Slughorn School of Safety and Necessity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the high walls of Hogwarts, on the large bed in the mysterious room, Hannah stared up at Ron. Their clothes were mostly on, which was not how she had imagined her first time, but that was her imagination going too far again. Their lips had only just been pressed together, their bodies embraced free of restraint- it was time for her shirt to come open. There were no words needed; no jackboots of authority would goosestep their way into the bedroom if they let nature take its course; neither would the whims of the public and its mores decry their confession of desire. She felt a million things, she felt she wanted him to see her for his sake, she wanted him to see her for her sake, but even now there was the terrible curse that lied beneath the surface, the aberration that ruled her body.</p>
<p>"I'm a werewolf..." she whispered, knowing it was unnecessary.</p>
<p>"You don't look like one."</p>
<p>The dream ended with her waking up for a new day. Hannah cursed her imagination, making memories of times that never happened. Getting out of bed with something of a magical headache from the charms applied to the sleeping quarters, she nearly bumped into the young woman who was apparently her roommate, Leanne. <em>Is she the one who works closely with Electrum? </em>She had not been especially privy to the secrets of Hufflepuff House in the last two years.</p>
<p>"Sorry," she muttered, getting her things together quickly.</p>
<p>"Think nothing of it." It was an unconventional way of responding, but at least it made sense. It occurred to her that she had no idea what kind of person Leanne was. Perhaps Ron and Hermione would be getting into a disagreement about what the side one chose determined and what it did not determine as far as character went.</p>
<p>"What's your whole stake in the-"</p>
<p>"What's yours?" Leanne asked. "No, don't tell me, you're did it for a boy."</p>
<p>"What? How did you-"</p>
<p>"There are not many other explanations," the older witch explained, levitating things into her schoolbag. "Personally, I thought this one was the most charitable." Hannah scowled. She had only been meaning to ask how she knew about Ron, but realized the girl knew nothing about her life, only the side she had taken and assumed the rest from there.</p>
<p>"For the record, I only started-"</p>
<p>"You only started sleeping with him last year? That's about what I expected."</p>
<p>"I haven't <em>slept </em>with anyone!" she objected, following her senior out of the room. "I only started being interested in one particular boy after we were on the same side for about two years. I wasn't doing it for him, and I'm still not doing it for him- even if he died, I would still be fighting." Their paths would soon diverge, it seemed, but Leanne left her with a passing comment.</p>
<p>"Well, you're not fighting now, are you? That's what I expected as well. Witches mature a little faster." <em>It's better to let her think that. I would think Terry would have advised the same thing.</em></p>
<p>"Since we're both mature, then, what's up with Electrum? How did you decide he would be leader? How did he decide that you would be-"</p>
<p>"No one decided anything of the sort. He was the most qualified, having been mentored by Ebony, and he took it upon himself to guide the discussion after Dumbledore exiled her. I took my own role upon myself because I am qualified for it; if anyone more qualified existed, he or she would have said something." Hannah scowled. It had been substantially more difficult than that to choose the leader of the group; she doubted that an entire House could just rally behind one person after he appointed himself. From the way people had been talking the last few days at least, to say nothing of her career at Hogwarts, she had a pet theory that Ebony had a way of making her subjects think that they came up with the ideas themselves, and if Electrum learned from her, it was business as usual.</p>
<p>"So you don't like him?" she asked, baiting a response.</p>
<p>"No. We are not involved with each other. We get along, being like-minded." <em>That wasn't exactly how I expected the response to go.</em></p>
<p>"Well, if you hated him, would you still-" she started. It was clear enough they were missing breakfast, but Hannah did not care. She would get to her first class early enough not to be thrown in jail. They were walking, probably to Leanne's class, so that might count as an excuse.</p>
<p>"Of course. The same would be the case if I liked him."</p>
<p>"Then why didn't you just say that your feelings were irrele-"</p>
<p>"Had I said that, it would have meant that I did like him." The younger witch stopped walking, then started again because the older did not miss a beat.</p>
<p>"Wait a minute, isn't that just something that people say, even though it's stupid, just because everyone says it? Like 'oohhh you're not confessing to the murder, that means you did it...defensive much? Hhmmm?' Like do you actually believe that?"</p>
<p>Leanne responded with only a smile before turning on her heel and walking off again. <em>Whatever. I'll see if I can learn even less in class, but I won't be optimistic. </em>She walked off to Potions, where she resolved to stare at Slughorn to remind him that she knew his secrets. It seemed easier to make eye contact when he looked away, like some kind of game of chicken. They were learning about Pepper-Up potions, which were a necessity in some careers, though apparently they were habit-forming.</p>
<p>"Now with the decanter, you'll find, there's a simple charm to expand it, which airs the brew, decreasing its reactivity," the instructor explained from the front. "Oh, and- well, never mind, there's no need to tell you about what other applications this might have." Hannah scowled. If real life was anything like television, normal children were allowed to handle dangerous chemicals after they were cautioned about them. If the class was anything like the skinny book they had for it, she wondered what all he was going to be teaching. <em>If there's ever a time for someone to get him distracted, it's during a potions class.</em></p>
<p>"Sir, you don't need to show us this potion again. If there's a variant where we use Spanish Moss instead of Waybread, why don't you just say it?"</p>
<p>"My apologies, Master... Hopkins, yes, I remember you. You see, I'm up against quite a wall where I'm asked to 'extrapolate' when our betters have decided I should not expand."</p>
<p>"Well, if you're going to teach us half a class, teach it in half the time," some one else suggested. She was a younger student Hannah could not identify. <em>That explains why she isn't even remotely pretending to be respectful, I suppose.</em></p>
<p>"How is the Strengthening Solution dangerous, anyway?" Megan Jones asked. "The dangerous people have already been cleared out of the country. They will not gain anything by our learning it in class."</p>
<p>"It's a very interesting process they use to make these decisions, dear, yet I would not provide false hope of a satisfying answer. I am afraid many good, useful potions will not make it into future books because the Department of Magical Education would rather exclude a useful potion than include a dangerous one; no one would notice the former, and no one would leave them alone about the latter."</p>
<p>"Then they should be replaced with people who can make wise decisions," another student objected. <em>I don't believe I've seen him before. </em>"If I can tell what potions are dangerous and what potions aren't, then they should have appointed me instead."</p>
<p>"Ah, perhaps, but I am sure our leaders tell which applicants should be appointed and what-" Everyone seemed to be taking the teacher's side all at once. Crouch was incredibly popular among the students, except for those who found themselves unpopular.</p>
<p>"Well, don't our enemies know how to make dangerous potions?" Megan asked, taking it in a different direction. "Our leaders are of course correct in reserving such privileges for Aurors and Healers, but would they not have to have a longer training period?"</p>
<p>"You raise an interesting point regarding the theory of education, Miss Jones; perhaps you will make a good Department Head one day. The reason that has come to my attention is that there may yet be enemies among us. It is not a matter of where or to whom they are born, some unknown character may bring about the end of our great system." Hannah's eyes narrowed. <em>He's getting rid of me. If the students go around killing everyone they don't trust, I'll be first.</em></p>
<p>At some point when she was in Hogwarts she realized she had switched from trying to be in public areas where people could see her to hiding almost all the time. At some point, the crowd was no longer a reliable witness, if it ever had been. The school's population of 'everyday people' had diminished over the four years she was there, though that was the fault of Voldemort returning. She scowled to herself. <em>Well, I guess I can't blame him for Ebony, though- oh, no, wait, I can, because he was part of the reason the Inspections were allowed. I keep forgetting he was born in fucking 1926. If he'd been alive this whole time, he would be turning seventy later this year. </em>She momentarily entertained herself with the idea of the Dark Lord with a shaking spine, but according to Hermione wizards seemed to live slightly longer than muggles, and this particular wizard had as much of the Elixir of Life as he could ever want to imbibe, and before that he had a host of enchantments, charms, and curses on his own body, mind, and soul to keep the three of them together no matter what kind of physical or magical trauma they had to endure. A killing curse was supposed to work, since his own was the theoretical explanation for the cause of his death in 1981, but she would have to be mad not to have almost ruled that out entirely. Regular walls could block killing curses, and she doubted they had seen the extent of the speed at which he could move, even without apparating.</p>
<p>As Potions class ended, she decided it was still impossible to blame everything on Voldemort, even if the chronology worked out. People were in control of their actions and how they responded to threats, like the kind he presented. <em>He's made himself virtually impossible to defeat in combat. Any government not using him as an excuse to expand its powers would have at least tried to defeat the ideology he supported rather than training Aurors for him to kill. He would be alone without the Death Eaters, and sooner or later he would have slipped up.</em></p>
<p>She sighed, walking to her next class. Ron would be poking holes in her argument. His followers functioned as an army to protect him by taking on the threats themselves, whether by talking and bribing their way into the Ministry, killing anyone who could not otherwise be defeated. Had he not reached out to them, they would have offered him their services. The Ministry had good reason to go after him aggressively, and she was being a bit of a defeatist or a retroactive prophetess of doom by suggesting they should have just surrendered. <em>The problem they started wasn't during the war, it was after. Most of the members of the current government were quick to rescind Crouch's emergency powers, they even moved him to some unrelated department. They kept the Inspections going because they had started before Voldemort ever became a threat.</em></p>
<p>It was difficult to find a way to think about it, even in her next class, but she kept at it. Tom Riddle might have given the Ministry an excuse to expand its powers, and the Department of Mysteries an excuse to control that from below, but they definitely took it. <em>Well, of course they would take it. Government employees are paid in power and prestige because that's what they want.</em> There did not seem to be any way of keeping threats from ever coming up, except of course putting agents in Hogwarts, but it was perfectly apparent how that turned out. It was a perverse incentive problem. They had to find something, so Ebony made up connections to dark magic either out of real extremism or as a means to an end of gaining more control. They had no reason to find real threats, whether they took the form of students learning dark stuff or building blood purist cults, because those students gave them more power, not less. Those students were the least threatening thing in the world to their positions and their model for expanding control, and that was why they never reported their findings, not even years after the students involved had already graduated Hogwarts.</p>
<p>"Miss Abbot?"</p>
<p>"Yes?" she asked as she looked up. The witch teaching Arithmancy appeared to have asked a question.</p>
<p>"Using the rune circle, what is the Haldar's anti-regulation of the unweighted numbers in the set?"</p>
<p>"Jesus," she muttered under her breath, scratching the quill rapidly as though she could reach the answer more quickly that way. <em>If there's one class that will never run out of material, it's this one. </em>"Right, the principle doesn't apply because of Ylda's Theorem. There's no using a rune circle for this one."</p>
<p>"That may have been what you were taught thus far," the older witch conceded. "Yet our texts for this year do not contain theorems from Ylda the Ancient because of her contributions to suppressing the goblin rebellions of 1839; there is no academic of suitable intelligence who would have opposed those rebellions." <em>They can't well snub her unless they render her theorems false, can they? Or maybe...</em></p>
<p>"My apologies," Hannah responded. "I found on page thirty eight, about halfway down, a citation to Xiang-Ye's formula, which contains the same rule, and I had assumed that the policy overlooked it in that case. Need we not be using the formula, if we can't use the theorem it contains?" Arithmancy had always been one of her better subjects, even if she hated it. She appreciated the fact that there was no guesswork and she could get to the right answer if she worked at it and applied the mathematical logic. It was the terms for simple concepts that annoyed her. That was a point of agreement she had with Hermione.</p>
<p>"You may use the formula, but you will have to call it something else." The teacher's response came after a pause, but it came as expected. Class continued; she was aware of the stares in her direction, but she kept her head down. Either she got out of the school or someone would probably kill her. That was all there was to it. <em>Now I just have to tell that to my racing heart.</em></p>
<p>She jumped over a leg-locker, a tame spell for a werewolf, to be sure, but it made sense for the first few days. The violence could only be expected to go up slowly as attempts to put her in her place failed, or quickly if she retaliated. With absolutely no way of winning, her advantage was to drag things out. The problem was there was no conceivable way of escaping because of the wards on her body. She was almost certain the ones her Ravenclaw friend had invented for her had healed while she was in a cell, and if she tried to remove the ones they put on her, she would almost certainly die. There was literally no way her life was more important to the Department than her captivity.</p>
<p>
  <em>All wards can be removed. Sometimes all it takes is another wand.</em>
</p>
<p>Hannah entertained the notion of telling some higher-up that she was a Death Eater, so they could release her and advance their own narrative, but they would know she was lying. The idea that 'fence-sitters' were actually the opposite extreme of whoever looked upon them was a fanciful notion entertained only by the unwashed masses doing the bidding of their masters. On one side, these were the rustic wizards who made up the bulk of the deaths in the battle to defend Hogwarts in her second year. On the other, they were paper-readers and quill-twiddlers silently keeping their heads down and blowing the whistle on anything slightly suspicious. They would not make up the bulk of the deaths in any conflict, but it would not be because of their ability to defend themselves after they handed their wands over to be warded.</p>
<p>The truth was, and the leaders knew it, that those refusing to pick a side were extremely dangerous, but only to the narrative that there was no other choice. There were downsides, to be sure, one of the least obvious and most insistent being the lack of 'place' she felt every so often, but she knew it was the right thing to do. If she ever felt like she was on a side at all, it was with her friends, and it was on the side of truth and justice, however little of an impact those nebulous concepts seemed to have in her life. <em>I need to find Slughorn. He still has questions to answer- and there's a chance he can tell me about the wards.</em></p>
<p>She caught him on the way to the office area.</p>
<p>"Professor, I would like a word with you."</p>
<p>"Excuse me?" he asked, perhaps rhetorically. "I'm afraid I must remind you there are no private conversations between students and teachers."</p>
<p>"That's right, there aren't. You're not about to tell me about the kind of dark magic students were researching in the forties that had you worried." She looked around. "You're also not about to tell me what kind of dark magic can get me out of these wards without killing me for at least twenty minutes." From what little she knew about it, she hated the very idea of dark magic, but using it could not be completely off the table. She had already been training to use the killing curse, one of the last things she had been doing while she was free.</p>
<p>"I'm afraid that doing either of those would be quite a bit worse for me than the revelation of the admittedly controversial things you know of my history. Even if it were possible to remove the wards from your person, I could think of no other way than temporarily..." he trailed off. "No. No, I'm afraid you have pushed my willingness to aid you as far as it can possibly go."</p>
<p>"I know what I'm doing," Hannah asserted, having already cast the muffling charm. "You're afraid. You'd take the certainty of some small issue over the risk of something worse. Well, you have a small issue, that's me knowing your secrets, and that comes with the risk of something worse. You can try to get the other students against me, but really you should be equally worried about them. When they don't have me around, they'll look for another blood purist to kill, to prove they're not blood purists themselves."</p>
<p>"Are you suggesting I escape with you?" he asked, as though the idea were entirely ludicrous. In fairness, it was.</p>
<p>"They already know I'm trying to escape. You've been seen talking with me multiple times, but no one knows what we were discussing. They don't know anything, but they don't have to know anything. They just have to suspect it, and they will. If I'm caught, you're going down with me. There's not a damn thing you can say to get out of it; I've been in prison with these people and I still am."</p>
<p>She was relatively confident her work would pay off. Having rehearsed the speech and taken pains to speak with her co-conspirator where she could be seen, but never heard, the plan was solid. Either she was not going to get caught escaping from the school or they would both be in prison. <em>It'll work. It will. I just have to convince my heart to slow down enough to keep from beating out of my chest.</em></p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Consolidation of Accounts</h2></a>
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      <p>Draco did not experience the usual sense of satisfaction in the days after his night in the girls' tower, but that could be explained in many different ways. For one thing, Davis was a vassal and could be described as a friend. He had assumed she was loyal to Evan, and it had not occurred to him that she might have that sort of interest in him. Perhaps there was the excuse that he was more available, since he had figured out a way of communicating with her, but in all cases she should have broken it off with the Heir first- and if not then, she should do so presently. Another reason had more to do with the circumstances of the plan. Was it as simple as Davis deciding that she would not help him kill Tõnisson so that she could sleep with him? Why jeopardize the plan just for that? He doubted she had heard of any surpassing skill from Padma; he was any other young man in that regard, not that it mattered.</p>
      <p>In any case, he had already told Evan that his old date would no longer be seeing him, but he seemed to mind little enough. He had not been sleeping with her; her interest in him was mostly academic. Draco silently nodded at the explanation. He had only been trying to act the gentleman, and this matter was hardly his main concern.</p>
      <p>Essentially, word of killing his last target failed to spread as intended. It was a denunciation of an enemy, to be sure, but it looked like one coming from a supporter of Lysenko, who had for years muttered about leaving the Estonian in the cold, which he had not realized was a threat of killing him and tossing him out a window. <em>It remains the wrong time to leave for Nurmengard. As little as I can afford to delay the mission, the release of Grindelwald must coincide with my credibility in Durmstrang. Without being known as a powerful dark wizard, releasing him would be interpreted as a way of sending him as a lamb to the slaughter, exactly as the Dark Lord planned. Having gained some trapping of his legacy in the control of Durmstrang, however, the blood purists will be seen to honor the school's former master. All of the east could be gained in a stroke, from the Danube to the Urals, at the least.</em></p>
      <p>"Nott," he muttered, finding the young man in the school's academic library. It was a massive school to have separate libraries for literature, academic resources, and what was essentially propaganda. "Lysenko is our new target. With him gone, our intents will become clear, and our ranks will swell." He spoke without the usual pleasantries; it was not the time for them. The vassals had gone further than anyone else in the school would dare, and had received no reward of wands joining their cause. <em>Of course, no one else in the school is aware the Headmaster would hardly toss me out for killing someone.</em></p>
      <p>"The Heir seems to have turned against us, Malfoy. Perhaps it is bold to predict as much, but his influence is almost entirely convinced we proved ourselves false blood purists."</p>
      <p>"Treason was not in his tone when last we spoke. He lacks the skill but to hide his expression; the contents of his mind were available had I wanted to peruse them." He sighed. <em>I could have made a great Slytherin out of him. </em>"His surface thoughts were of dark magic, academics." There was no rule against using the mind arts on other students, but it was generally frowned upon, at least by the students themselves.</p>
      <p>"I see. Perhaps my respect for him was not replaced after all," Nott decided. "Has Davis provided an account of what happened, that she did not follow through with the plan?" Bulstrode had reported that she had taken over for the other vassal when an owl reached her the previous day, though Davis herself had less to say on the matter. <em>She's as silent as she was that night... until the doors closed.</em></p>
      <p>"I must have mentioned my receipt of messages from her through the shared desk," he commented, stalling. "My initial supposition was that she lied her way into the post under Galina to keep a hand on the broom handle, to control for any kind of uncertainty, like the witches being uninteresting to Tõnisson or something. It was futile to pretend not to recognize me, of course; everyone knew we both came from Hogwarts, at the very least. She never confirmed my conjecture, yet she never denied it, which she would have, had she any issue with it."</p>
      <p>"I see. I have been researching Nurmengard Castle, and have required assistance from other vassals. I regret to inform you that the task has quite consumed me, and for your next target, you will be without the same manner of help."</p>
      <p>"Very well; should I at least retain Goyle, it should be possible, provided we arrange for Lysenko to be on his own." <em>He has Derrick and Bole reading for him; if there were ever a sign we needed more vassals, it could not have been half so clear as this. </em>"What have you found so far?"</p>
      <p>"Much and more regarding the magical protections. Dark wizard though he was, Grindelwald rarely trusted occult magicks with anything of import. His writings indicate he had every reason to be confident no one would break a prisoner out with dark magic; in his day all the masters were on his side or afraid of him. He left no way out from the inside, but in this, though it is never explicitly stated, he might have anticipated his own imprisonment."</p>
      <p>"He would have heard of Ekriz-Dis, then," Malfoy observed, thinking back to Azkaban. With only the slightest of refurbishments to the wards the ancient dark wizard had left in his own home, the Death Eater plants in the Ministry were able to resurrect him, if only temporarily. Yaxley was still not quite certain how the wards functioned in advance of being selected for the mission, which likely influenced the Dark Lord's decision. <em>What I still don't understand is how it's possible to come back from the dead in the first place.</em></p>
      <p>If he wished to know more about that, there was only one man he could ask.</p>
      <p>The Headmaster did not make himself the most available of the staff at Durmstrang, yet those who knew the proper procedure could make an appointment. It was no secret he had a high opinion of himself, even to those who did not know the truth about him. <em>Even in his disfavor there are ways to gain an audience. </em>He decided to wait until the evening, sending a letter through the fireplace on the hour, enchanted to land directly on the dark wizard's desk. It had also been quilled and sealed in blood, but that was a matter of course.</p>
      <p>Arriving otherwise unannounced was bold enough to have him magically drawn directly to the chair in front of the desk. The room was spartan, as he was told it always had been, but there were numerous open books. Draco did his best to keep the contents of his stomach, remembering the last two times the Lord Voldemort used magic to move him around.</p>
      <p>"Let it not be said your mettle goes unrecognized, Malfoy. I had known you were not the same cautious sort as your father, but perhaps you will serve the better for it."</p>
      <p>"I have learned that there are better and worse role models, Headmaster. The greatest of the dark wizards simply percolate to the top; alone, they see all the petty schemes and conspiracies beneath them, for they are the direction of all of them."</p>
      <p>"You have realized I manufacture my own enemies, then. Perhaps you recall the goblin rebellion of the Third Summer." In truth, he did not; it was an obscure conflict that had no lasting impact, or that would be why he had not heard of it. <em>He must have found use in some strategy that they employed.</em></p>
      <p>"You put your own men in the Inner Circle," he whispered, as if putting it together based on the historical example. "It would have been one of the avowed blood purists, then-"</p>
      <p>"He truly is a blood purist, at least in a sense; he merely views my efforts as that of a cleansing fire. The roots that go deep will survive my wrath, while all other family trees will burn. The governments of the world dare not fight us as we fight them, lest they lose Secrecy in a stroke."</p>
      <p>"You are not concerned for it, my lord?"</p>
      <p>"It is better that we have it than not; yet I would survive either way. On some distant day, even your father believes it will be lost, and the magical world will only continue if it can threaten that of the muggles. Perhaps he lacks confidence in my ability to threaten mere muggles."</p>
      <p>"Surely not, though I would venture he would prefer to have every wand. The Malfoy line is much older than the Year of the Dark Lord, and it has not lasted so long by trusting its masters." <em>Perhaps I test his admiration of temerity. </em>"Even you have died, my lord, though I still do not understand it." He hung his head. His mental shields had never been stronger, but he doubted they would hold up. <em>My only hope is that they render the reward less than worth the effort.</em></p>
      <p>"Do not think me unaware that my exploits are of interest to aspiring dark wizards." Draco remembered that he was to believe there was only one dark wizard in the world, and the rest were merely students of his. <em>This was not my first clue he was an academic. </em>"Perhaps some will say that I defeated death when I regained my body, but in truth I wandered as a shade for years before that- whether I was living or dead made no difference; I was tethered to the world of life."</p>
      <p>"Were you like a ghost, then?" He knew that they were bound to a place.</p>
      <p>"I was far weaker than any apparition, yet what bound my essence was no physical place, one that can be destroyed, as has been proven." He glared. "I suspected for years that my old spells applied to my body preserved me, but my body was in ashes; there was no target and no effect could take place. I theorized that spells themselves existed, in a sense, and that sufficiently layered charms had a chance of preserving each other."</p>
      <p>It seemed he concluded that was more likely than anything else. <em>There remains a chance he is lying, though I could not think of any reason.</em></p>
      <p>"You do not know, then, what preserved your soul." The Dark Lord scowled.</p>
      <p>"The preeminent masters in the ocean of dark magic could not possibly explain what preserved my soul. I have heard of magic that has an effect on the soul, yet I was cautioned in absolute secrecy never to use such mechanisms on my own. The Death Eaters, as you should know, are bound in soul to me by the dark mark, by which I may more effectively control them."</p>
      <p>"Perhaps, sir, your connection to them kept you alive."</p>
      <p>"I have considered it, academically, but the link was almost entirely unidirectional. I would have been aware of being bound to them, and I would have had to have been released from them in order to bind myself to a new body. Consider Ulton's Principle of Limited Consolidation." Draco let absolutely no response to the reference show; it would not do to have the Lord Voldemort realize he knew nothing of an obscure theory. "In any event, I did not plan for my death, and this is because I did not intend it. I do not believe, even now, that my reasoning is fully understood by any of my followers."</p>
      <p>"If your will is that you do not die, and nothing can happen that violates your will, then there is no need to account for your death," the Malfoy heir attempted. "Your death, therefore, was an error of yours, rather than a triumph of your enemies."</p>
      <p>"Precisely. If you have not heard the Great Prophecy, you have heard of it, I would venture." He nodded. His father had heard enough of it himself; a younger Severus Snape had revealed as much as he had heard on the last night the Dark Lord breathed. "There is some chance that prophecies do not merely report the future, but speak of a greater magic that controls it. If this is the case, the prophecy itself might have kept me alive. One of our greatest artefacts, stolen by the foolish and the unworthy, is the Goblet of Fire."</p>
      <p>Draco's eyes nearly came out of his skull. <em>I shall have to see if there is a charm for that. </em>He remembered, of course, that Evan was forced to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, not on pain of death, but by teleportation to the starting line, as if some unknown portkey controlled his location. The magical contract was perfectly inviolable. If prophecies were to be given about the participation of the champions, they would necessarily be true.</p>
      <p>"We know that manner of magic can exist, then." It looked like the Headmaster wanted him to continue. "Perhaps someone has written a magical contract involving you, my lord?"</p>
      <p>"If such magic were so simple to perform, I would already know of it. Suffice it that the magical contract can only be as powerful as it requires of the contractors and contracted." It was a more difficult statement to parse than he would have liked. <em>Yet parse it all the same shall I.</em></p>
      <p>"How is the contract of the Goblet written, then?" he asked, deciding the Lord Voldemort would have taken the opportunity to study it. He doubted it ever left the sight of a few Ministry officials, but an expert at the mind arts could have studied it from their own heads if he wished. They would remember nothing, of course.</p>
      <p>"Magical contracts require no quills and parchment, though I presume they could be written in such a way. The knowledge of their true nature has been lost, due to the likes of your father and his friends, recording only what might give their own children an advantage, splitting books down the binding to keep upstarts from learning from any one of them, and allowing petty games of nobility to degrade the academia of magic from the days of the Founders to a point where the Statute had to be written."</p>
      <p>Draco was taken aback, somewhat. The Dark Lord's version of history was almost as critical a view of his family and others like it as was written in the textbooks, though he had none of the same doubt as to its veracity. What he called petty games of nobility was mostly vying for power over other families, which in a roundabout sense prevented wizardkind from advancing as a whole. The tradition of Secrecy was anathema to the old blood purists at the beginning because many of their servants were muggles, though there were exceptions written into the Statute when it was passed, and there was a switch to elvish labor in the eighteenth century.</p>
      <p>"Then we need to reclaim the Goblet. There are charms that could tell us more about it..." He was racking his brains, but he had never tried to reverse-craft enchantments before. <em>Draw on something you know. </em>"Under the light of Mars, there are divining rituals-"</p>
      <p>"I have heard of them. Rule of Magic will come, Malfoy, you need only secure the freedom of Grindelwald; your failures will be ignored then and not before." The young Slytherin needed no further suggestion to leave the office with a quick bow. It was not as if it was easy to work with the Lord Voldemort, but he was essentially reasonable.</p>
      <p>Scouting out Lysenko proved to be more challenging. If there was a single worst consequence of killing the Estonian, it was the fact that it did not convince his real enemy of anything. The wizard was still wary of him, and Bole said he was watching every move of the vassals. <em>When he dies, he shall watch us no more. </em>Draco sought out Goyle before classes the following day. To his surprise, the young man looked listless, which was not an expression he had been thought to be able to make.</p>
      <p>"Ill news, I presume?"</p>
      <p>"Yeah. Crabbe's father is threatening to break off his fealty from your House. I don't know what to do about it. My father says it's his right." he concluded with something of a grunt. "We've been your bannermen since no one can remember."</p>
      <p>"Did Crabbe not have some cousin going to this school? I believe I heard of him last year, if not the year before."</p>
      <p>"Somewhere around here. Wouldn't know him if I saw him. Been here two years now, longer than any of us."</p>
      <p>"Well, I should like to extend an offer of protection." He knew the plan had its drawbacks. "He may not accept, but it would be better to offer." He turned his mind back to the enemies around him as he went to class. Lysenko had many allies, mostly from his native country of Russia, though it was only an incidental bias. Magen Brod, from Prague, might have been the furthest to the west, but some said his loyalty was the fiercest. Draco took a seat behind him in Alchemy, keeping an eye out for other hostiles. The instructor was already talking, as always, but he had other ideas for the first few minutes.</p>
      <p>Reaching out with Legilimency to invade without being detected was more difficult than using it to brush a few surface thoughts or communicate. Preparing himself, he extended the slightest tendril to feel for any sort of shield in place. <em>There's one here, but there are cracks. If I can just get past- </em>It was like tracing back a train of thought to find where exactly it had derailed. Each weak point in the wall provided him with a clue to get through the next, and at length he was through the shield. Somewhere in the real world he was aware his hand was tightly gripping his wand, and he knew what kind of spells he could cast on the subject without harming himself. There was a scene playing out before his eyes. It was the man of the hour, of course, but what confused Draco was that he was talking with Kamotsky.</p>
      <p>"The Heir of Slytherin must die," the large wizard insisted. It appeared he had found Lysenko and Brod in a corridor late at night. "I know you would kill him. He is dangerous to your ideology. I shall help you," he promised. The other leader scowled back.</p>
      <p>"Perhaps I could be persuaded to murder someone who is out to murder those born of muggles, as I. Dare I not deny that it would be for the good of all, yet to work with you I would know what your motivation is."</p>
      <p>"He whispers in the night." Draco had trouble understanding what he meant, but at least his Russian was easier to parse. "Either he does it or someone does it for him; I don't know. He tells me things he shouldn't know."</p>
      <p>"Basic mental shielding-"</p>
      <p>"No one has ever passed my shields. Even you can't do it. I know you've tried."</p>
      <p>Lysenko was in a difficult position, either having to admit there was a better Legilimens in a younger student, which was improbable, or take the request seriously.</p>
      <p>"What is he telling you?"</p>
      <p>"He's telling me how to destroy my enemies. He's even told me your weaknesses. I can't imagine why he's doing it or what will happen..." Kamotsky's eyes were wide. "He told me that you're a glass cannon. You always strike first because you can't take a hit." There was no reaction. "You don't need to confirm it. Just help me kill him. He knows too much. He's too dangerous to be left alive."</p>
      <p>The other wizards did not ask why he needed their help. That much was clear. Evan's following had even grown in the past week; his skill as a duelist and his power over the darkest magic drew a crowd; even his heritage was an asset. Draco drew out of the mind he had surveilled.</p>
      <p>
        <em>Evan was the one whispering about the great city of Ys. He wants me out of the way, most likely, but there are other possible reasons he would send me to such a place.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>I had better practice my dark shields.</em>
      </p>
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  <p> </p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Interlude: Self-Prservation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I haven't anything out of Bill," Charlie reported, kicking the campfire. He felt grossly under-equipped for whatever it was that lied ahead, but he could be mistaking that feeling for hunger again; both were constant. "It's not that he's holding out on us. I really think he doesn't know anything. It's good that the goblins are staying neutral in this one; he's practically the only member of the family who can hold down a job." It was an exaggeration, but it served. His father was out of the Ministry doing Merlin knew what with the Order, Percy was being thoroughly investigated every time Crouch suspected people with his shade of red hair, and the twins were having to go out of the country to have any hope of starting a business. Basically, they had ties with 'terrorists', and the new regulations prohibited transactions with anyone of their status. Australia was the obvious choice, but they had even fewer potential creditors who would take them seriously, considering they never finished school.</p><p>"It's their nature... either that or something equally unlikely to change because of one little war." Sirius had a way of speaking without looking at anyone. Over the past few days, they had interviewed various people in Libya over the last few weeks, to little success, only the former Azkaban prisoner never failed to impress him with the detached, mechanical way he had of talking. He was angry about something, but he kept it all under the surface, at least for now. When Charlie asked him about it, he chuckled and said it was the one thing his family ever did for him.</p><p>They had initially come to the country on a rumor of a rumor, but they saw enough there to justify extending their stay. <em>It's not as if we have any better leads.</em> They learned more about the country than either of their targets. The muggles had just gotten out of a war with Chad and now there were internal conflicts due to the divided loyalties between tribes and the state. Several assassination attempts by multiple sources had been made against their leader, but he avoided them, falsely claiming they targeted civilians. <em>And when the muggles of their country are getting torn apart, the wizards can't help but intervene.</em></p><p>Three days ago they had met two representatives from the Magicians of Light, a force of peace and order that patrolled much of the Arabic world, and had for centuries, at least according to them. The muggle who ruled was under their protection, as they judged it would be worse if he died.</p><p>"You came here to tell us that, then?" he remembered asking.</p><p>"Of course. I can't tell you how many foreign wizards like you have come here to kill him."</p><p>"Well, that's not what we're here to do. Have you seen anyone who-" They disappeared. Sirius looked over.</p><p>"Do your best not to give them what they want right away."</p><p>It had been his first and last piece of advice in that regard. Presently, they followed up a lead on their old informant; how he might have come into contact with the real targets. The Magicians had their eyes on dark wizards like Said, though it had not been easy to get them to share information. The coveted datum had taken them to something like a smoking bar in Tripoli, which had apparently not been the same since the Barbary Wars, though Charlie would have never known the difference. Apparently it had been one of the early American conflicts in which wizards had taken no part- on their side.</p><p>"I'm tripping over Statute violations everywhere I go," he muttered, annoyed.</p><p>"Don't be bothered with it. The muggles here might something every so often, but no one else ever believes them. They'll never pose a threat to the African magical kingdoms. I thought you had seen representatives of enough of those yourself." The red-haired wizard sighed. It was true that he had seen quite a few dark wizards from all over the continent, but that was quite a different animal from having seen the whole landmass.</p><p>"I reckon if I spend a thousand years here, I'll understand a quarter of one country. You might have something there." <em>Well, that's not fair. I should say what I mean. </em>"I don't like the way you act like you know everything about this place. How long have you been here?"</p><p>"I've been here as long as I've been out of prison, so a little over a year. I suppose you've been here longer?"</p><p>"Not a lot longer. That's my point. There's a lot about this continent I don't understand. Burkina Faso actually enforces Secrecy, for one thing. That's something I only learned from talking to Wahde."</p><p>"If they are, they're fighting a losing battle and probably making things worse. Secrecy only functioned in the West because it was a tradition long before it was law. Blood purists like my family members use this sort of thing as a justification for fear of muggles, which is all there was to it, at the time. The muggles there are aware that magic exists, and now they know it has an interest in hiding itself. Before long they'll realize that there are places outside of Africa with wizards, and Secrecy may well fall apart just like that. The International Confederation of Wizards has allowed the various kingdoms and empires on this continent to maintain their lax interpretation of the Statute for precisely this reason."</p><p>"I don't need you to tell me about blood purist arguments."</p><p>"You don't? How else will you know you're right?"</p><p>Their contact arrived. She could have passed as a local, but Charlie could never be sure. <em>Perhaps she could only pass if she's trying to fool me. </em>In any case, it seemed like he recognized her from somewhere.</p><p>"Why did our targets choose to go here?" Sirius asked.</p><p>"Have you not heard? Already there are whispers of the summit in the great city of Ys." The red-haired wizard pursed his lips. As someone who worked with dragons, it annoyed him how many people did not seem to know the difference between muggle fairy tales and reality. "Voldemort has declared war on the world, and there are those who would convene to plan his demise. No African delegates have said they will go, meaning our continent will survive the war." <em>As long as they don't sign up to fight him, he's not going to make them his top priority, and neither will any magical government on the other side. It's possible they don't care who wins, mostly. Only someone like Grindelwald, conqueror of the muggle world, would give them a dog in the fight.</em></p><p>"People like Regulus and Goldstein would be sure to remain on the continent if they knew," the older wizard conceded. "At the same time, it seems unlikely they would have found out before we did. When did you find out?"</p><p>"The information was leaked today. It will happen tonight."</p><p>"It's starting to sound like they could have known it would happen," Charlie said. "There's no way this summit could have been proposed any later than a few weeks ago. I don't know what else they would have been doing if they hadn't been keeping up with news." <em>Everyone's finding that particular thing hard these days. No matter what source you use, it's guaranteed to be unreliable, and no one knows any better.</em></p><p>In the past few months, his family members had been a source of news to each other, but there was only so much they could do. Spreading out really only gave them access to whatever biased newspaper ran in whatever other country they visited. Some of them were better than others, of course, and each regime had a different idea of what should be suppressed, so theoretically someone honest could come up with a mostly honest paper with the time and the resources, just by comparing all of them, keeping track of narratives that were being pushed... but it still seemed like an impossible task. It seemed like the kind of paper everyone would want to read, but soon enough the world would be flooded with imitators, papers playing the same game as always. It was easy enough to open up identical publications in different cities, and they could just play off each other.</p><p>"If they know of it, then they would have heard of it from somewhere. They haven't been away from the continent in months, if not years," Sirius reasoned. "What we need to know is where they are currently, or where they will be in the future, and our only hope of that is finding a regular contact of theirs. Knowing of a largely secret meeting narrows the list of people in the Maghreb considerably."</p><p>"You have now reached the real reason I have brought you here. The wizards you seek are being aided by the Magicians of Light."</p><p>"What?" Charlie asked. "Why would they help a Death Eater and some random bellend who just wants to live longer?"</p><p>"Most likely, they did not know he was a Death Eater. There are no obvious signs of this." It appeared his partner was not going to tell her about the Dark Mark. It was some big secret, something only they were supposed to know, but he had seen a few of them in prison, as well as on his family members. <em>They probably had long sleeves anyway; it doesn't matter. </em>"There are times when your goals are different from the goals of others. Perhaps one is right and the other is wrong. The Magicians do not concern themselves with right and wrong, only peace and order."</p><p>"So they're allowing themselves to be pushed around by anyone who might start trouble," he decided. "Goldstein at least would have been able to figure out how he could exploit something like that. He does something that threatens peace and order, so to pacify him they give him the information he wants. He's probably been in contact with them ever since he's been running from us."</p><p>"Someone with them would know where he is," their contact added. <em>She wanted us to think that the whole time, but she's let us reach the conclusion without too much help. I can't play this game, though, not at the level they're playing it.</em></p><p>"What's your part in this?"</p><p>"Let us say that my goals are different as well," she responded cryptically. "You may call me Traiana. The witch they would have contacted is named Wusa."</p><p>It must have been enough information for Sirius. Charlie still felt like he was missing something as the pair of them took broomsticks east, where their contact suspected they would be able to find the old witch, described to be at least sixty. <em>Can't look out for only older birds- might be changing her appearance somehow.</em></p><p>"How did you know this lead was real?"</p><p>"She didn't smell like she was lying. She didn't smell like dark magic. If she's against the Magicians without being dark herself, she's probably more like we are than anyone else." They were landing outside a closely guarded compound. Wizards and witches with all-too-familiar white robes stood along the high walls of a rammed-earth fortress in the wilderness. <em>There's no way muggles can find this place. It's probably been charmed off the maps for millennia. </em>Since it seemed they were taking the 'knock and the door will be opened' approach, the red-haired wizard kept his hand from going to his wand. <em>We just want the same thing the last two people who visited them want.</em></p><p>An older wizard came to the door. He was another local of a caramel tone, but his eyes were white. <em>It's some kind of divination thing.</em></p><p>"Excuse us, Father," Sirius started in English before switching to French. It was one of the many times he had questioned the wisdom of leaving Wahde to go back to school, but the wizened man before them was meant to represent an international organization, and while Arabic would be their primary tongue, they would have to deal with some of the same places the two of them had already visited. At length they were admitted into the fortress, where they sought out the target Traiana had named for them, though it was a more difficult task than expected. It seemed like most of the people involved with the Magicians were over fifty.</p><p>It occurred to Charlie that a possible explanation for their contact not coming in person was being a target of the organization, but they knew better than to mention her name. Sirius asked around as he kept an eye out for any sort of trap. <em>They wouldn't let us into the fortress if they thought we might be a threat to anyone inside. Or, well, they might have still let us in as long as we could not threaten anyone with impunity. </em>He wondered how recently and how thoroughly their confidence in their abilities had been tested. The black-haired wizard was talking to an older witch now, though what they discussed he could hardly guess.</p><p>At length, they parted.</p><p>"I have to know what you said to her."</p><p>"It's not important, Weasley," he said, throwing his leg over a broomstick. He never looked quite at home on a broom, but Charlie supposed Quidditch was not everyone's game. "We're going to the Lost City of the Kalahari."</p><p>"No, really, this was something you wanted to teach me, right? You wanted to teach me how to get by without giving away my objective or giving them what they want?" he asked, following Sirius into the sky. "I reckon now is as good of a time to learn-"</p><p>"Act like you know what you're doing; act like you're supposed to be there, and people see what they expect to see. I told her we'd heard from some friends about a conference in France, and I asked her what she knew about it. I told her a few specific details about it that I invented, then I said I wanted to reconvene with our friends."</p><p>"That was enough?"</p><p>"Most anything would have worked. They only would have lied to us if we acted suspicious. That's why it's not important."</p><p>The rest of the trip over the vast landscape they passed in silence. They reached a ward boundary allowing them to apparate again, which took them to an agricultural landscape.</p><p>"Where's this?"</p><p>"Botswana. I don't know where the Lost City of Kalahari is, and it's going to take more than an afternoon to find, unless we run into someone who knows something. It seems more likely that someone who deals with the city would know where it is than someone who only knows of it, so we're going to ask the rustic wizards."</p><p>Charlie merely nodded. By some measure, he was a rustic wizard himself, but he and his family never kept more than a garden. There were spells for growing crops at a size most muggles would consider absurd, but for the Weasleys, it was a necessity. Fresh ingredients had been a convenient cornerstone in his mother's cooking for as long as he could remember.</p><p>"That's where I come in, then," he inferred. He cast a spell for detecting gnomes, but reminded himself he was on an entirely different continent. <em>They'll be hiding in plain sight as it were.</em></p><p>"Crops that might grow around here are millet, sorghum, raffia palm, kola nuts, and ensete," the older wizard supplied.</p><p>"I'm not looking for any of those. I'm looking for something that wouldn't grow around here. <em>Accio cherries.</em>" A handful of unripe cherries, probably plucked off a branch, flew in his direction. With the unerring skill of a Seeker, he grabbed one before it hit the ground. "We're about four thousand miles to the south of the agricultural range for these."</p><p>"Good show. Fly slowly; there's no reason to let people think they're under attack." They mounted their brooms and set off in the direction from whence the fruits had come. While he had expected no magical concealment charms on the cherry orchard or wherever the tree was growing, and he knew the summoning charm had a short enough range, he was having trouble spotting the right place until Sirius pointed it out.</p><p>"Man's using a shade around his trees to keep people from getting anywhere near them." The term 'shade' applying to some kind of magical phenomenon rang a bell. "I heard about them in the Ashanti kingdom, you do not want anything to do with the shade."</p><p>"How does he get the cherries out of the-" <em>Right. Same way I did. </em>"How is it you can just put shades down wherever you want?"</p><p>"I doubt that's what he did. If I knew where one was, I'd buy the plot off whoever had it and plant the trees in it from a distance. They know enough about shades not to touch them, but the trouble is that if you don't investigate them, you never find out what they are. I don't blame them; the last wizard who tried is probably still down there."</p><p>They landed their brooms at the end of the path leading to the house, a wooden construction like others in the area, but substantially better maintained. <em>Whoever lives there probably just allows it to be the envy of the vicinity. </em>Apart from that, the property was unassuming; with no obvious signs of magic. Walking up to the door and knocking on it, as was generally considered polite, failed to produce results.</p><p>"I guess we couldn't expect everyone to just stand around waiting to help us," the red-haired wizard observed. "I'll bet if we give it a minute, he'll come back." He tried to look around the property for any obvious signs of life. It seemed most of the fruiting plants were trees, notoriously low-maintenance, and there was no well in the back for drawing water, suggesting whoever lived there conjured it. Everything looked like it mostly stayed the same most of the time. Sirius was performing some wand motions. "What's that?"</p><p>"It's an old charm from when we were fighting Death Eaters. It reveals humans in the area, and if you're clever about it, you get an idea of where they are. He's hiding. <em>Alohamora.</em>" The door came open, but Charlie held him back.</p><p>"If he wants to hide, let him hide. He's got a right to it."</p><p>"Does he now? I suppose Goldstein had a right to run off?"</p><p>"I wouldn't have gone after him if he didn't have my sister with him."</p><p>"You'd have made a schoolgirl fight?" the black-haired wizard asked. "Interesting."</p><p>"That's not why we were going after her. Not everyone hates their family members as much as you do." He sighed. "The whole conflict with Voldemort is our fight, so we can't run from it. We can't just keep our children out of the way, because the country where we live has to be a place where we would want them to live. If there's something the matter with it, we have to fix it, because it's our problem. When you start taking your kids and handing them a portkey to New Zealand or something every time something's wrong with your country, where do they go when there's something wrong there? When do you stop, when they have to learn other languages or they can't remember what nationality they are? Protecting children is the responsibility of parents, and when we sent them to a boarding school, we always backed the people who were helping the school, namely Dumbledore. He was protecting everyone. No matter what happened while he was in charge, it always would have been worse if he hadn't been there; it didn't take the Ministry a year to knock the whole damn castle down."</p><p>He had been watching Sirius the whole time, who seemed interested in something that looked like a stylized lion in the the light of spellfire. He supposed it could be some sort of ward equivalent, but he had no idea what the purpose would have been. It seemed, however, that the former Azkaban prisoner had been paying attention to him at the same time.</p><p>"I wish someone had told my father as much."</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. The Compromised Castle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Poking around in the ruin of Hogwarts had been a change of pace, but it would be a stretch to call it a welcome one. The Ministry declared the area a quarantine mere moments after destroying the castle, mostly to go through the library and get rid of anything inconvenient. After they had most of what they wanted, the officials were needed elsewhere and the small contingent of Aurors they had to protect them from Death Eaters or anyone else were most likely given different orders.</p><p>Hagrid, as it turned out, had been living in the Forbidden Forest the whole time, and members of the Order would come by every so often to see if he had found anything useful. Their organization had suffered from the lack of a clear leader since Dumbledore died; there was no one to just pick up where he left off. McGonagall had flatly refused before that, but the only reason to be had for anyone being the leader was that he had chosen her as a Deputy Headmistress. She reminded them that the post was not a sinecure, with its own responsibilities, and he did not view her as his spiritual successor, the Vergil to his Homer, or anything of that nature. It was her opinion that as Snape had been chosen with the protection of the school, he could at least decide the leader, but that was met with a host of objections.</p><p>For one thing, Dumbledore had only chosen him to prove a point, and there was the matter that if he was trying to keep up appearances as his spy on the Death Eaters, he was doing a damn good job of it. The ones who were not convinced he was doing more than playing the part argued he could hardly play it if he were also the leader of the Order. Hagrid suggested putting it to a vote, but there was no word on when they could all be assembled.</p><p>"Yer not joinin', though, aren' ye?" he had asked.</p><p>"I can't. I'm on the run, and they'd never let me do anything. What have you found here?" <em>Some of the old teachers would be a better choice for looking through what was left of the castle. Hell, even the twins said they knew the secret passages.</em></p><p>"Well, 's not like I was lookin' in the ruin as much as the Forest," the half-giant started. "Worried we're playin' the same game as Voldemort, tryin' ter get the creatures ter fight fer us, when most of 'em jus' wanna be left alone. Can't convince 'em the ol' Ministry types are even worse- most haven' heard of the Department for the Regulation and Control 'o Magical Creatures."</p><p>"I don't reckon Acromantulae care much for politics." Ron estimated.</p><p>"Tha' they don't. Haven' found anythin' good in the castle except mebbe this ol' archway."</p><p>That was a few days ago. Since then, they had been helping him. They were going to have to go back to London, and they were basically just delaying at this point. The strangest thing of what they found was an archway that refused to fall, perhaps laden with some protected enchantment not part of the castle's main structure. <em>Wish we had Hermione here.</em></p><p>The view through the archway appeared to shift, but corrected itself.</p><p>"You all saw that, right?"</p><p>"What did you do?" Harper asked.</p><p>"Nothing, I just..." <em>Bloody hell, it really is this door. </em>"I guess it wasn't some physical part of the castle." <em>Don't know what the hell I thought it was.</em></p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"It's the mysterious room. They wouldn't have thought twice about the archway when it went nowhere." Confused looks answered him, except Lovegood was smiling. "I guess I had better show you." He remembered the phrase for the room and it opened as it always had. The four of them stepped inside, with Hagrid looking on confused.</p><p>"This isn't a regular undetectable extension charm, is it?" the Slytherin asked. <em>He'd have heard about those from Goldstein. Might be he even learned a thing or two. He's said they were supposed to be out there studying. </em>"There has to be something more to this-"</p><p>"I can't tell you about all the enchantments. You'd have to ask Hermione," he deflected. <em>'course, it's doubtful she even knows. </em>"Basically, you come up with some sort of room you want and walk in. It's not that complicated."</p><p>"It's not that complicated?" Macmillan asked, eyes wide.</p><p>"Well, it's not complicated to work it. I don't have a damn clue how it works."</p><p>"If you need a loo, then it's a loo?"</p><p>"Prob'ly. Never tried it. Always went with this place."</p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"Not sure; I think it was Hannah who found it. Hermione said she read about it somewhere, but she didn't bother to explain it to either of us. Might be she said something to Terry."</p><p>"Where is he now?" Lovegood asked. <em>Dead. There's not a chance in hell the Death Eaters didn't kill him.</em></p><p>"I don't know. He didn't want us to follow him." He looked down a moment, though he was turned away from her. "We had to leave him."</p><p>Looking back at her, the expression on the girl's face was completely contrary to his expectations. Her smile had faded and she blinked, more than appeared necessary. She looked away almost immediately. <em>What the hell was I thinking? What was I expecting, some kind of creepy grin? </em>It was true that she was weird most of the time, but she had her limits. A few days ago she had handed him a bouquet of aconite that had been growing on the grounds for some reason, telling him it was his birthday. He had stopped keeping track of the days, but it was definitely not his birthday.</p><p>Getting back to London was as easy as it was unpleasant. With no further information about the attack than what they had already received, the company was forced to act on the assumption that nothing had changed. As near as he could figure, how it was supposed to be seen by the public was that the island was still stuffed with Death Eaters, who were less than happy to see the ineffective Amelia Bones replaced with the stern, proactive Rufus Scrimgeor, Crouch already having given him the nod from the Minister's office. They would most likely be chased away, but not before the previous Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement could 'toss herself' in the way of a killing curse aimed at her successor. <em>-no, I can't afford to assume too far in advance.</em></p><p>He knew why ambiguity was what his Ravenclaw friends hated most about magic. There seemed to be more ways of covering up the truth than revealing it, and it irked them to no end. At some point he had a vain hope that the lack of knowledge would make school easier for him, but if it did he would not have noticed. There seemed to be no advantage sufficient for him to be interested in sitting in a classroom all day, or make above the rare 'A' in potions.</p><p>The four of them landed in the theater they had been using to hide out, seeing it had not been compromised. <em>Feels too easy. Should prob'ly scour the place for wards. </em>He gave the order to Lovegood and Macmillan, taking Harper out to the front to search for hostiles. The Slytherin had been allowed to come up with a substantial amount of the plan, oddly cooperative with the Hufflepuff. Ron suspected he was still a blood purist of some sort, but just had better things to do than alienate the rest of the company.</p><p>Out in the street he caught sight of nothing of interest. Staring in the crowd in an attempt to pick out recognizable figures, he caught sight of a rough and tough looking wizard he might have recognized, but no one else. He was looking for long, black robes, but the 'Death Eaters' were not meant to come onto the scene for hours. <em>There's something really fuckin' fishy about this.</em></p><p>"I don't like this," he commented as they regrouped. "We don't have enough time to take in information."</p><p>"We haven't seen anything to indicate it's not going to go as planned, though," Harper added. <em>True enough- don't know whether or not I hope he's right. </em>"Everything going more or less as expected is the only thing we <em>can </em>predict."</p><p>"Ever is there uncertainty." It was Macmillan. "Knowledge is the exception to the rule of ignorance. Let not its dark reign turn us away from boldness, where there is only one way to proceed all the same." It seemed Lovegood was agreeing, which was a bad sign, since he could not help but see the truth in it. Earlier it had been a choice between saving a few lives and exposing the Ministry in a maneuver of untold strategic value; they could hardly back out when both opportunities presented themselves. As long as it was possible, they had to try. The company moved as a unit.</p><p>The Gryffindor had not heard from Mafalda since she left for the Irish school, but that was almost certainly for the best. If her letters were to so much as find him, it would be a connection to be intercepted by the Death Eaters or Crouch's people. He continued to be concerned that she would be interrogated, but fortunately it seemed no one had established the connection between her and the group, even though they had sheltered her in the mysterious room for the better part of the last year. <em>It's not permanent. She'll finish the year and come back to us, better able to help us than ever.</em></p><p>The crowd outside had grown, and it assembled before a transfigured stage in the middle of the street. Consistent with the plan, the Minister had announced the appointment far in advance, and made it a public affair 'to strike fear into the hearts of every dark wizard remaining in Britain'. The idea was not to make the new system appear unsuccessful in rounding up Voldemort's followers, but to make it look like even they underestimated the extent of the control the Dark Lord had over the island, justifying the current policy and whatever came next. Ron led the other three into the crowd, hoping their disguises had not already been recorded somewhere. <em>We're looking for anyone who might be wearing a Death Eater getup underneath what they have on... can't eliminate active charms on clothing that could be canceled at a moment's notice...</em></p><p>"Many of you have heard of this government's plans for appointment," the speaker started. It appeared Crouch had not come in person. <em>There's no reason he wouldn't be here; he's supposed to be the one doing the appointing! </em>He resisted whipping his head around. <em>Not that he could resist being here anyway- there's a faint chance he's one of the disguised... </em>He tugged on Lovegood's sleeve, letting her read his surface thoughts as her eyes widened. "It is equally important, however, that we inform you of an international development, and we feel this must come directly from the state, not a private newspaper." <em>As if you've ever disagreed on anything.</em></p><p>There was a murmur in the crowd. Ron could see Amelia Bones standing near the speaker and the wizard he recognized as her replacement. <em>She has to have been kept under a rock this whole time not to know what's going on here. They could have given her an endless stream of tasks to do.</em></p><p>"It has come to our attention that Voldemort has given a city in China a golden statue of a dragon, a recognizable gesture of an appeal for an alliance." Murmurs in the crowd indicated that some had not heard, or at least the implications had been uncertain before they were recognized. "It should please us all to know that no other government has received such overtures, and it should be that they accede to our admonishment in rejecting them if they do." There was a reasonable degree of applause.</p><p>At first Ron did not know whether it was out of a genuine agreement with Crouch's government that people generally behaved, or a lack of other options, or fear, but at length he suspected that it was a number of different reasons for everyone. There was no obvious sign of movement in the crowd. <em>There's a million different ways this could go down. Now's not the time to question the intel, Macmillan's got no reason to lie- he's already had a million and a half chances to turn us in. </em>At the same time, he could not help but keep his eye on the Hufflepuff. As long as there was some reason to suspect him, it could hardly hurt to keep a watchful eye. Harper, on the other hand, was quite possibly in the greatest danger of all of them.</p><p>The speech continued. A loud noise could be heard coming from a nearby shop, but he ignored it. He had walked the streets many times over the summer and the apothecary was no stranger to the occasional sudden bang. <em>At least I learned something- should've changed tactics a long time ago- </em>On the stage it seemed they were getting to the part about the appointment, and what was odd to him was the smile plastered on the face of Amelia Bones. <em>Reckon it could be someone polyjuiced to look like her.</em></p><p>He wondered if the real one would join the Order, or if she were dead already, killed and replaced before the faintest whisper of the new Department Head had been spoken.</p><p>One of the mistakes people made trying to predict the moves of a corrupt government was assuming that it would enact its plans stupidly. It was easy to have a low opinion of a government that could not solve problems, lied about everything, and enacted bad policy, but it was foolish to attribute such behavior to the individual intelligence of the officials. According to his father, what painted the best picture of what they willingly passed off as stupidity was the Edict that Umbridge had envisioned and pushed through. She knew damn well that it would not reduce crime; she acted like it would because that was how it would get passed. In reality, her goal was most likely to increase crime and cause the people to cling more tightly to the authorities for protection. Most of the officials voting in favor of it were likely aware of the nuance, as were the minority voting against.</p><p><em>Ernest sees something. </em>It was Lovegood's voice in his mind again. He expected the thought was being shared with Harper, but the Slytherin was doing a good job of not letting it show.</p><p><em>What is it? </em>An image appeared in his mind of a man on the top of a nearby building with his wand out. <em>That's the Findley's Financial building- </em>He turned to see it with his own eyes. <em>They can pass this off as someone who's supposed to watch and protect the people involved- or maybe he really is one of them. The fake Death Eaters won't be posing as Ministry security; that'd give people the idea that they couldn't trust the government. </em>Looking closely, however, it was the rough-looking man he had seen only a matter of minutes earlier. <em>What the hell is going on here?</em></p><p><em>We need to be ready to extract ourselves. Everyone stay close to Ron. </em>He heard no mental voices apart from that of the Ravenclaw, but could tell everyone was in agreement. The wizard on the rooftop cast a darkness charm, followed by a dark mark in the sky. The pale green apparition was accompanied by several screams and a deafening sound of marching feet. <em>Trolls- have to be at least three of them- </em>Several people from the crowd levitated into the sky, creating black shields as the Aurors laid down suppressing curses.</p><p>"They're the target!" he shouted, casting a stunner at one of the levitating bodies as the trolls cordoned off the area. Somewhere the speaker was ordering everyone to remain calm, lest they get in the way of killing curses. <em>Hell of a way to set a precedent- </em>None of the spells being used were working against the black shields, even the illegal curses cast by the panicking people in the crowd. "Let the Aurors deal with the trolls!" he ordered, attempting a killing curse against a levitating wizard. <em>It doesn't matter if we kill him as long as we can identify the corpse.</em> The spell appeared to go through the opaque shield, but it went through the other side as well, and other wands were meeting with the same amount of success. Macmillan was pointing out the strange wizard as he fell from the roof, either stunned or dead.</p><p>"He's the bloke!" the Hufflepuff shouted. "We need to get him!"</p><p>Closing his eyes, Ron apparated to the ground beneath the falling wizard, mentally congratulating his subordinate for initiative. He was there in time for a magical net to be conjured, and to see an Auror catch him, and before a wand could turn on him, he cast the old sleep assist charm he had seen Goyle use once. As he had half hoped for an instant, it went through whatever magical protections might have been there and gave him the chance to grab the body and apparate again.</p><p>He felt Lovegood's hand on his back almost immediately, grateful for her situational awareness as he shouted orders to the other two. His mind went to the theater, or the back of it, where he knew there was a hole in the anti-Apparation warding. <em>We'll need to be able to disappear at a moment's notice. </em>He took the opportunity to scan for any kind of appearance-changing charms, finding none. Wizards and witches around him were beginning to take notice of his captive, the unmistakable man who had cast the dark mark, shouting the incantation that none dared utter.</p><p>"Boy, is he a Death Eater?" someone asked.</p><p>"Ask him yourself. Doesn't have a mask, does he?" He scanned the area for what felt like the thousandth time. The Aurors had not locked onto his position yet. <em>Luna, please-</em></p><p>
  <em>I'll keep an eye out.</em>
</p><p>"I don't suppose he'd want to be stopped before he cast it." The voice belonged to a middle-aged wizard.</p><p>"Why didn't he put up one of those black shields that doesn't let fuck all through?" Ron asked. "I reckon he's Ministry. I can feel a pulse- they fired killing curses into the crowd, but they spared his life. He's one of theirs."</p><p>A wave of confusion and discomfort and drawn wands passed through the crowd. Some Auror he did not recognize fought through it, dragging Harper with her. In the sky it seemed the round, black shields were gone, and the people who cast them could have disapparated.</p><p>"He's on a list. Said you dragged him here against his will. Is he a friend of yours?" The way the cogs seemed to be turning in her head, it seemed she wondered if she recognized Ron through the appearance charms.</p><p>The Gryffindor pointed at the stunned wizard with his wand.</p><p>"I could be asking the same of you."</p><p>"That's a known Death Eater," the red-robed witch said, taking stock of the crowd. "Perhaps it's odd that we stunned him, but I assure you it's the policy to bring him in for questioning. Look at the inside of his right arm, put your wand on it."</p><p>He did as he was asked. Perhaps it was going to start looking weird that Lovegood had her hand on his shoulder, and Macmillan must have been somewhere around. A black skull and snake appeared on the wizard's skin.</p><p>"He'd look like a Death Eater," someone called out. Neither Ron nor the Auror could see who said it.</p><p>"The Dark Mark is not something we can replicate. It's a unique bit of magic Voldemort invented himself to keep his men from being able to rebel against him." He looked around. "I'd advise the lot of you not to come up with conspiracy theories regarding plans by the Corps to stage attacks on people, not after our own Amelia Bones has just died." He reached out to the Ravenclaw behind him. <em>Get in her head. If something goes wrong, we're out of here.</em></p><p>
  <em>I can't. I've tried.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Then we're out of here.</em>
</p><p>She stunned the Auror at the same instant that Macmillan pulled Harper to their position with the retracting charm. He grabbed the Slytherin and disapparated, leaving the stunned wizard behind. The red-robed witch responded with a curse rather than a shield, but he could worry about that when they landed. He would have to, anyway.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Shu</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lóng-Laoshī stared at her from across a round, wooden table, carved out of a living tree with oranges growing. After their initial encounter, which seemed to just confirm the school's interest in her, she had found a ward on her forehead which would put her to sleep if she tried to remove it. It was despotic, to be sure, but not excessively violent, which she appreciated. Her mental shields had been tested on the first encounter, but it seemed the teacher of war-divination only wanted to know whether or not she had them, not the entire contents of her head. <em>Of course, though, he would be interested.</em></p><p>"老师打开门。你自己进入。" His voice was steady, but not intimidating.</p><p>"玉不琢，不成器。" Her own tone maintained a respectful nature. <em>We can cite platitudes to each other all day. </em>What she had learned about the teacher in between her meetings with him was that he had former students in government, who came back to him every so often for advice. It was difficult to understand exactly how much respect she should be showing, since she was new to magical governments in general, except one for which she had very little respect. Of course, it made sense to do whatever she was asked, at least while she was learning at their school, but there had to be limits else she might as well move there permanently.</p><p><em>You understand your situation, then. </em>The mental voice was just the wizard's surface thoughts; she knew that much. It was possible he could tell how much she was working to translate what he was saying.</p><p>
  <em>I understand the school's interest in my knowledge, as well as the national interest. Scant though it may be, I would be happy to provide the information should you tell me how to remove the ward you placed on my head. If it is preferred by either the state or the school that I remain ignorant of such things, I suppose it would not be too difficult to prize what I know from my skull. I would assume, though, you have some further use for me.</em>
</p><p>Oddly, the man across from her smiled, picking an orange.</p><p>
  <em>Perhaps I should congratulate you. One in my place, enamored with the old ways, might have threatened the very same. I suppose it is reasonable for you to equate my interest with that of the kingdom and the school, but I happen to like visitors. One of the sayings of our school is that in a group of three people, there will always be one from whom I can learn.</em>
</p><p>Hermione refrained from letting her guard down. She had heard the expression, and she was aware that she was in a culture where hospitality was an obligation, but it seemed unlikely that stern realists would allow her to leave without what they wanted of her. Of course, she was not leaving just yet- and they were most likely brimming with confidence they would have it out of her one way or another, and the simplest way was having it out willingly. There was also the slight cost of lost tourism if anyone ever heard of teenagers returning from China with holes in their memory, or worse. It was a bad look, and one they could avoid easily enough.</p><p><em>If you have no intention of threatening me, perhaps you could tell me about wards. I know they're always removable, but the removing it will frequently cause an undesirable effect. If nothing else they will at least notify the warden of their removal. I am aware that the secrets of wards are carefully guarded, but there must be some way... </em>It seemed unlikely that a ward that had not been intended to be removed had persisted since the time of its activation. Perhaps the world would not be full of them, but someone had to have invented a methodology at some point.</p><p>
  <em>It is possible you would gain from understanding why it is a carefully guarded secret, and why no hint of it can be allowed out of certain minds. During the Cultural Revolution, there were many wizards who sided with the new system. Others favored the emperor, the old histories, and certain books of magic, and the most natural thing to do was to protect these with warding. Unfortunately for them, even wards that killed whoever removed them did not stop the revolutionaries. At long last, they activated the wards on the country itself to threaten to destroy all of China if they could not be left in peace in their own temples.</em>
</p><p>She remembered hearing from Cho that the entire country had been warded over the centuries, but she had not specifically known that they had something like the Trace, where the land was covered in variable wards that had effects determined from a central location. If it were so, there was only one place it could be.</p><p>
  <em>The Forbidden City...</em>
</p><p><em>Precisely. The wizards who were against the new system had barricaded themselves inside, and promised they only wished to live in peace, though the others could not allow themselves to be so threatened. Perhaps they would want something else, and they would always have the option. </em>Lóng-Laoshī sighed deeply. <em>They nearly tore apart the Forbidden City when the revolutionaries managed to unravel the wards. The nonmagical had to be kept outside more than ever.</em></p><p>
  <em>Did they escape?</em>
</p><p>Hermione allowed herself to hope it worked like the escape of the nationalists to Taiwan, but remembered things always seemed to work a little differently in the wizarding world. It was not as if every single historical event happened in a direct parallel to the normal version. Wizards in various conflicts actually had a history of avoiding killing each other, since there were so few of them around the world, and at least in the past there was always the option of going their separate ways.</p><p><em>Most of them died. It was one of the worst days in our history. We lost an incalculable amount of knowledge, but the new system believed it had no choice. </em>Hermione did not remember it in the history books, but perhaps classes had not reached that point just yet. There was no reason to believe the books would explicitly lie, since it seemed more like an open secret than anything else. In any case it made her sad, thinking of those wizards as their magical defenses were unraveled and they were slaughtered. In the modern day, the old ways were allowed to come back in a limited capacity and people were allowed to begin to identify with them, but it was a frightening concept. The easiest thing for most people to do was take a small amount of pride in the thousands of years of history that the country and its magic had, but express only reserved admiration for the old ways, if any.</p><p>
  <em>Was there an ancient secret for warding that they discovered?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Perhaps you could tell me something first. I have heard of the Philosopher's Stone; we have studied it extensively since the first one was made. The trouble is separating the myths from reality. What is Voldemort able to do with it? Our limited contact with his servants has left us quite frustrated. We suspect they are lying to us.</em>
</p><p>Hermione nodded. She was beginning to gather that in international meetings, it was incredibly impolite to use the mind arts, except where it was perfectly necessary for communication. It seemed overwhelmingly likely that there was at least one Chinese ally of the Death Eaters, if for no other reason than because of how many of them there were, so they would have had an ambassador in the country ever since their master returned. The Imperial Ministers would not expect Voldemort to reveal his plans just to maintain remotely positive relations, but they would expect to know where they fit into them.</p><p>
  <em>The Stone can generate the Elixir of Life in a specific alchemical ritual. There must be another one for turning base metals into gold. I don't know exactly what he has done with the gold, but I would expect anything hasty like buying the entire world would backfire. There are most likely several other properties of the Philosopher's Stone, but I don't know what they are. Voldemort would know, and it seems like the manner of thing he would be interested in researching. He's conceited, and he's... well, a scholar, first and last. His men don't trust him and he doesn't trust them. He's evil and hard to predict; don't trust him to do what you think he'll do. Whatever it is, he's doing something worse.</em>
</p><p>The teacher of war-divination seemed to have taken what she said into account. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, except, of course, with the mind arts. He did not seem to expect her to understand the dark wizard's goals, but somehow he had been made aware of the Stone and thought to ask her specifically about it. It was too much of a coincidence.</p><p><em>Laoshī, did the Death Eaters who met with you have a... dynamic between them? Could it possibly have been an old one and a young one? Nott and Gibbon? </em>The names meant something to him. They would have met with their Anglophonic ambassador rather than him specifically, but he might have heard them. <em>You had to have asked who told them what they were telling you.</em></p><p>
  <em>What do you know of these wizards?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A few years ago, they kidnapped me and asked me about the Stone. They intimated that they were trying to protect it, but I cannot think of any threat that existed to it at the time. Having spoken with Draco Malfoy, the son of one of their leaders, I suspect that they might have been trying to destroy it themselves.</em>
</p><p><em>I suppose they might not want their enemies coming back to life. </em>She shook her head.</p><p>
  <em>That was one of the things I thought it might be, but it seems more likely that they're trying to kill him. From what little I know, he's an incredibly skilled duelist and he has enchantments and artefacts on his body to keep him alive. He's also supposed to have died once, but was able to manifest as a shade and possess people, which was how he regained his body with the Stone. Destroying it is the first step to killing him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why would they want to kill him? Does he not lead them?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blood purists existed before he came around. According to them, he's really done them more harm than good, because he kills his servants whenever they displease him- the only reason they've been working with him so far is because they would rather have him on their side than against them. He's killed a lot of their enemies, but he mostly focuses on his own goals and he does not genuinely care about what they want.</em>
</p><p>If she should have expected one thing going in, it was that the teacher would need to report what she was saying to the rest of the school, and quite possibly the Imperial Ministers, but in any case she had given him enough for the time being. There would be more meetings of this nature, but at the back of her mind it was increasingly likely she would not be able to stay at the school long. Either someone less hospitable would decide her knowledge was too important to risk the chance of her being dishonest, or that if she were so confident of the information she was providing, she should have no trouble risking her life over it. The idea reminded her of defectors from enemy armies being forced to march across a minefield after having indicated the locations of the mines. They were not going to risk their own people on information they had no reason to trust.</p><p>Allowed at last to return to school, people acted like nothing had happened. <em>Well, it is not as if they all track my movements and would wonder if I disappear for an hour or so. </em>She took notes as always, but could not keep her mind from wandering. Lóng-Laoshī was a busy wizard, but he would meet with her again, and it seemed more likely than ever that he would do more than test her mental shields. <em>The Imperial Ministers have nearly spent lifetimes working on the mind arts, but his ability to Occlude is likely much stronger than his ability to get through defenses.</em></p><p>There was supposed to be a maximum theoretical range on Legilimency in the sense that from far enough away, no witch or wizard would ever be powerful enough to invade the mind of another, so it was not as if Voldemort could be reading her mind at the present, though really she suspected the limit was much lower than that. She had never seen nor read of any instance where someone successfully used the mind arts from even a mile away. <em>They wouldn't have the Inspectors physically in Hogwarts if they could just read our minds from their sitting rooms. Even Dumbledore would have no way of knowing they were doing it.</em></p><p>Leizu was in one of her later classes where they were working with wards, but these were of the easily removed variety. It was interesting; wards were basically her first introduction to Chinese characters, since the Qin dynasty wardens were some of the earliest innovators in the art- and yet, it felt like she understood them the worst of all. <em>Some aspect of the discipline has to be controlled. I have to get back to Cho's house when they give us a day off. I need my old books.</em></p><p>She got through the rest of the class without missing too much, but it seemed her acquaintance was staring at her.</p><p>"它是什么？" she asked, trying to be polite. From her limited interaction with Leizu, Hermione understood she valued her own sense of propriety.</p><p>"你和老师在干什么？" <em>Well, that's the obvious question.</em></p><p>"这并不重要。他只是很感兴趣。"</p><p>Deflecting the idea that there was anything important going on was probably what the teacher of war-divination wanted. It was also easier than explaining that he wanted to see her to ask about Death Eaters and the Philosopher's Stone, and she was shooting her shot to see if she could get something about removing wards with impunity out of him. That kind of behavior would definitely be discouraged.</p><p>"我不相信你。轻浮。"</p><p>The class ended without fanfare, as always. Her acquaintance not believing her was hardly the end of the world, but it was suboptimal. She hardly wanted anyone to go around telling people bad things about her; maintaining a reputation in an alien environment was one of those things that always seemed useful.</p><p>Going to bed that night was weird, since there were noises coming from one of the other beds, causing her to bury her face into the cylindrical pillow and try not to imagine which one it was. It was not as if she minded the mere concept, yet having to listen to it was an entirely different story, made worse by the fact that she could not very well ask whoever it was to stop.</p><p>The following morning witnessed a groggy Hermione getting out of bed, finding Cho already awake.</p><p>"We have a bit more time this morning."</p><p>"That's brilliant," she responded, starting to remind herself of Ron. Sometimes it seemed like he truly loved sleeping, but he never managed to miss breakfast, even when it would cost him a few minutes of class. This continued even as he steadily got more serious.</p><p>"I was hoping I could show you something about my daily routine." The other Ravenclaw dragged herself out of bed and tried not to look too ungrateful. <em>I did ask for help with that once... now that we have time... </em>It was not as if they had not done any of that while they were at the Chang residence, but it was a shorter time than she would have liked, and neither of them had quite realized that the schedule at school would be so tight. In moments they were standing before a mirror in a washroom, brushing.</p><p>"I don't get it, should I not be trying to stand out?" she asked. "If I try to make my hair too straight-"</p><p>"If you stand out too much the girls will hate you very much." Cho was using a binding spell on Hermione's pony tail, making every hair straight.</p><p>"Well, perhaps, but if it's as straight as theirs, that's like saying I could beat them at their own game."</p><p>"If they say that, they just hated you whole time." The Chinese witch was nearly finished herself. <em>It's weird how I've thought of her that way the whole time, and now that we're here together, she's a regular Brit. </em>"Most of them will not care."</p><p>Classes started without any further delay, and she wasted precisely no time wondering what the problem had been. If she had learned one thing, it was that the students were not informed of anything that the school did not believe they needed to know. They were used to this; even Hogwarts students would be used to it if that had been the custom the entire time they had been going there. They had, after all, gotten used to Inspections.</p><p>Some otherwise passing moment while hastily writing notes, she overheard something behind her. Keeping her shields up, she tried to divide her focus. It was two older wizards discussing something quietly. It was an open secret that you could discuss things quietly as long as you did not cause a problem for anyone else, and it was a reasonably common practice by consequence. <em>If I had a galleon for every open or worst-kept secret in China, I would be richer than Voldemort.</em></p><p>It made sense to register their appearances and find them talking later. It could very well be nothing, and she felt like she would not be able to explain it to Terry if she stopped listening in class just to eavesdrop on some conversation about sports or witches. She turned around briefly and recognized one of them from the feast at the beginning of the school year. <em>Well, that's a misnomer. They're in school almost the whole year, but there are holidays here and there where they traditionally welcome transfer students.</em></p><p>Hermione did not see the same students in any of her classes following the first, but that was no cause for immediate concern. If Hannah were present she would have already thought up half a hundred possible explanations, though in recent years she had become better about sorting out the totally unreasonable ones. <em>Maybe I had some positive influence in her after all...</em></p><p>At their designated break time, she asked Shuan if he had heard anything odd about the delay in the morning, and he said that only the older students going into Ministry would have any concrete idea of what went on with that.</p><p>"That's what I would expect." One of her teachers in Magical Politics explained that the people do not know the inner workings of the Imperial Ministers, only the ideology that goes in, and the policy that comes out. A meritocratic government would groom replacements from their last year of school by getting them up to speed on most things that had been kept secret from the general public, and something that would cause a delay in the notoriously punctual schedule of the school would have to be a matter that warranted national attention. He pointed her in the direction where the students going into Ministry would usually hang out. The group of students was almost all wizards, but she knew the muggle equivalent was worse.</p><p>"They're masters of Fa, but you might be able to get something out of them."</p><p>
  <em>The prince must make use of Fa and Shu, building for himself an aura of Wei and Shi.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Fa is the art of standards and administration.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Wei is the art of majesty, inspiring the people.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Shi is the art of power and authority.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Shu is the art of state and war.</em>
</p><p>Walking over, she strengthened her mental shields as far as they could go. They were sitting near the class ranking, so she would use that as an excuse to eavesdrop, humming to herself to make it look like she was not listening to anything in particular.</p><p>Her tune stopped short when she translated the first few words.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Attempt Number Zero</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"There are potions, my dear, they're highly advanced, they take time to brew..." Slughorn had started. "Literally, technically, they make your skin resistant to magic- you might be familiar with the concept."</p><p>He was reminding her she was a werewolf to get her upset, but it would not work. She hated it, but she was used to the idea. <em>If he's still trying to get me off my game, he's trying to sneak something on me. If he catches me in the middle of an escape attempt, he'll probably earn himself a few anti-blood purist points, but I can't imagine he would last long after that. He needs me around as 'the real, present threat', and if they execute me, I'll just be a corpse.</em></p><p>Something had apparently happened in the wider world, but the students knew nothing of it, only that they were not to panic. She imagined an official coming in at entirely random intervals just to tell them there was no reason to panic, because the Ministry had everything under control. Either they would have the belief that the country was being run perfectly unerringly, or that at the very least they could lie about an infinite amount of things and be believed. After Azkaban, when the <em>Prophet</em> printed absolute lies about what happened there, the idea in her head of the average reader was that they were mentally disabled, but it was more complicated than that.</p><p>Without any alternative news source, it was remotely reasonable to believe the paper that was being printed, since there was nothing else to believe, nothing else on which to base decisions that had to be made. As someone who physically went to the prison, had at least spoken to Dumbledore, and knew what the blood purists wanted, she was on the inside looking out, so everyone looked stupid and ignorant. There was some blame to be assigned, since they could have some kind of problem with the fact that there was only one approved paper, but for most of them that was how it was their entire lives.</p><p>"They could make my skin invisible to the wards? They could make the wards not stick to my skin?" she asked, bringing herself back to reality. It was a bizarre concept, but she could envision it. Hannah was a bit fuzzy with potion theory on the subject.</p><p>"That's one way of putting it, one way indeed... look into Urble of Thule's <em>Enchantment under the Brew. </em>There's a bit of scholarship on the idea, but at the present it's all theoretical." <em>I guess killing me would be worse for him... the only reason I can think of for why they're keeping me alive is as a hostage for my friends. Well, at least we can rule out poison.</em></p><p>"Well, I needn't remind you that this is my only way out. If I don't get out successfully, you're going down with me for having helped." <em>And yet if I do get out, I won't be within reach of punishment, but you will. </em>The way she was talking was still weird to her, but it reminded her of some old movies she had watched with her mother.</p><p>The escape plan had to be carried out quickly, so the only delay she could afford was the potions Slughorn was brewing. Not being approved, they were necessarily illegal, but there was very little of her life where she could not remember doing something illegal. <em>I have to keep a low profile until then. They might have been able to get something out of my head without telling me, so they might know about the spirit magic that Terry was planning to use, but I don't know of anything else they would want to know. Hermione might have hit me with a memory charm whilst I was transforming, but I would have no idea what she deleted if she was selective at all.</em></p><p>Her plan to keep her head down and play the part of an obedient hostage was probably the right one, but failed in first contact with the enemy, as Ron might have put it. Leanne seemed to have made it her personal mission to get information out of her, probably predicting she would die soon. <em>No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What even is her deal?</em></p><p>"There is no way you're getting out of here," the older witch whispered at lunch. <em>They can still hear us.</em></p><p>"<em>Muffliato.</em> I know there's no way out. What gave you the idea I thought I could get out?"</p><p>"You've been talking with Slughorn."</p><p>"I'm asking him about Potions." It was an obvious explanation, but for people who cared little about the truth, it was an obvious lie.</p><p>"Since when have you started caring about that?"</p><p>"Have you ever heard of the wolfsbane potion?" she asked. "It suppresses some of the symptoms of lycanthropy, and it's named after one of the active ingredients, though according to some books the ingredient was already called aconite and took on a second name because of its common use in-"</p><p>"We have your student records from Hogwarts. You were never good at Potions, not even when you were a werewolf and Slughorn was teaching the class. You were never seen talking with him."</p><p>"Well, you wouldn't have seen me, would you? I could go into his office whenever I wanted and ask him about whatever." <em>She's probably lying just as much as I am. There were never that many people watching me at school, though it did get pretty bad toward the end of last year. </em>"What I can't figure out is what you're trying to tell me. If it's futile to try to escape, then what's the point of warning me about it?" Hannah asked, changing the subject.</p><p>"If you die in the attempt, we won't get any information out of you, and you'll die as a blood purist sympathizer." <em>That doesn't sound like an attractive prospect. Ah, well, I already decided I'd sooner look like a blood purist than be one of you.</em></p><p>"Do unwilling informants still lose status as a blood purist?" she asked. "I'm sure Voldemort trying to kill you usually disqualifies you as being a supporter of his, only if they themselves are to be believed, he's tried to kill some of the people who have helped him the most."</p><p>"They're not to be believed. Secondly, his attempts to kill them does not mean they were not helping him or loyal to him, because he would not know for certain they were not traitors. Without any sort of legal system to punish defectors or insubordination, he would need to keep them all in line with fear."</p><p>"I suppose. Does Electrum still think I'm working for him?" she asked, wondering if there were even an answer for this one. It was not as if the older witch were an idiot, and really she doubted very many of them were, they just enabled idiots because there was no value placed on the truth. There was no value left to assign after killing Death Eaters was made the top priority.</p><p>"If you were working for him, you would have been unable to perform your duties, because you have been entirely separate from his direction for several months. If you met him after that, he would kill you."</p><p>"That's comforting."</p><p>"That does not, however, mean you are not a blood purist." <em>I don't suppose it does. </em>"It means your only chance of survival is with us."</p><p>"Then why do I feel like I'm in danger here?" Hannah asked, just wanting to see if she would acknowledge it.</p><p>"I said a chance of survival. You have yet to do anything to distance yourself from the purists or your old friends in Slytherin."</p><p>
  <em>Mafalda Prewett? No, I shouldn't mention her. Even though the Hufflepuffs would have liked to meet her if they knew it had been boys from her own House who attacked her, she would still be an enemy of theirs.</em>
</p><p>"I don't have any old friends in Slytherin. Neville's friends weren't my friends." She still could not, for the life of her, say why he found Mafloy to be a worthwhile human being. There seemed to be definitions of terms that were confused with that idea. "You're not my friend either." She got up and went to class.</p><p>
  <em>They don't suspect me of working for Voldemort because I can't have received any orders from him in months. They seem to be underestimating his ability to think ahead, when he's accomplished almost everything I can think of that he would want to do. The scariest part is that I genuinely have no idea what he wants now.</em>
</p><p>Knowing what the enemy wanted was literally half the battle, or somewhere near there, in her figuring. She doubted the Ministry could have appeased Voldemort or even compromised with him, since his very existence seemed inclined to absolutes; he even tried to resurrect an ancient dark wizard and would have succeeded if Dumbledore had not been there. The purpose of bringing another monster back to life escaped her entirely, but it was worth something that he might have been tethered to life in the same way, engendering an odd sort of kinship between them. <em>How did that even work? How did Voldemort die and then come back to life?</em></p><p>She decided to ask Slughorn.</p><p><em>Meeting him every day like this has most likely already put him on the same list as I am. There's no way he can get off the list, either. What he needs is a reminder that all his efforts to get into their good graces are futile. </em>She found him that evening after classes were over.</p><p>"Excuse me, Professor, would you happen to know about how Voldemort came back to life?" she asked, watching him nearly spit out his tea as he applied the muffling charm himself. "I forgot," she lied. The other faculty were staring at them.</p><p>"The potions are not quite done, Miss Abbott; I had not expected you back for quite some time..."</p><p>"Oh, I had an unrelated question. You told me students were asking you about dark magic, and, well, I figured that one of them might have asked you how to come back from the dead." She shrugged. "It sounded like a dark magic sort of thing."</p><p>"I am afraid that to tell you about that, I would have to incriminate myself most seriously; any discussion of the hows and whys of dark magic is strictly forbidden, you see." His eyes shifted during his explanation. "Even in those days, it would have been completely counter to policy for me to explain the workings of any dark magick to any student or teacher at any point at all." <em>His wording is excessive. He's trying to hide something.</em></p><p>"Well, I'll give you until your potions are sorted out to explain it, then," she said. "The potions are well on their way, I assume?"</p><p>"Why, yes, dear, of course, any one of my colleagues could tell you that I've had several cauldrons on the old burners for days now. I told them it was nothing more than an experiment, since I find myself quite out of brews to teach in class. At this point, however, I should really ask you how your cover is being maintained."</p><p>"It's not going so well, I have to admit," she said, biting her lip briefly. "Leanne told me I haven't a chance of escape, and she says that people know I've been talking with you." The old teacher's eyes widened.</p><p>"You must realize you are endangering yourself as well, you know- Perhaps you find it amusing that I have taken a saner course of action, yet bullying me into more dangerous plans by tying our fates requires you to endanger yourself as well."</p><p>"I'm a werewolf in a school full of people who put safety over justice." <em>I've had to abandon the sane courses of action. </em>She wanted to believe that she was less than concerned about dying, because at least she would no longer function as a hostage, but she doubted news of her death would ever get out, and she was still afraid of it. Cursed though it was, her life was valuable to her. She wanted to rejoin her friends, because she loved them and they made her feel human. The physical and mental prison in which she had been trapped only made her realize how completely dependent she was on them.</p><p>Her gambit of allowing him time to come up with an explanation was mostly practical. Even if he told her, it would do her no good unless she escaped alive, and the information likely did not exist anywhere else in the world. <em>I have to be able to be patient on this one.</em> She took a trip down to the potions classroom where the brews were supposed to be on the burners. <em>I have to hope that no one will realize what these potions are. It'll be all they need to figure out my escape route. </em>There was no place, to her knowledge, where they could be brewed in secret, and this was by design; nothing was secret.</p><p>A student enforcer stared at her from the door.</p><p>"You're out of your dorm," he obviated. "I assume these potions Slughorn's been making have something to do with you?"</p><p>"I've been asking him about them, actually," she lied. "He won't tell me what they are, or if they're part of the curriculum. Have you heard of the wolfsbane potion?"</p><p>"You'd want to know about that, wouldn't you?" <em>You'd be surprised. At least when I chain myself up, I can't remember anything. I just wake up surrounded by scratches all over the floor and walls, and usually pain in my wrist. </em>"What are the active processes?" he asked.</p><p>"This one's bubbling at a low heat... green flame, so we're purifying the solution." She was making it up, but there was some truth to her words. "I think this one is literally just sitting there."</p><p>"Is it done?" the enforcer asked, getting closer. "I can't smell any recognizable ingredients."</p><p>"Well, sitting there might not mean it's done, sometimes we're waiting for the magical binding to decay." That was a lie, but she knew some potions had to be used immediately, so there had to be some that had to rest. He peered into the cauldron and she levitated some recently completed sleep potion into his face before wondering about where she could hide him. <em>No one should check on him for a few hours...</em></p><p>As despotic as the school was already, the enforcers were mostly students who took it upon themselves to see the rules followed. Generally speaking, they were older students who needed to catch up to the herd in the way of anti-blood purist action. They would not catch up, of course, since their actions could be explained by a desire to cover up their inclinations to purism, which they had automatically if they were half or more than half. Hannah had not heard of the distinction of being 'more than half' prior to arriving at the Ministry school, but apparently students were comparing their family trees in the hallways. She had no doubt that the people fighting the hardest against the systemic effects of blood purism had the purest blood.</p><p>Hannah went back to her dorm after putting the enforcer in another classroom, since the wards on her wand would go off if she cast virtually anything else. They were handed a list of approved spells which would keep the school officials from having to show up in the event of an accident, and also leave no excuses for accidental uses of forbidden spells, since they could be assumed to be forbidden by not being on the list. She knew, therefore, that trying to throw bodies in a shrinking trunk like they did with Malfoy last year would not serve. There was a rule specifically against the creation of impossible spaces, since students had nothing to hide, of course.</p><p><em>The killing curse would also be caught by the wards, but I could have killed him by levitating him onto an active burner.</em> That, of course, would accomplish very little. She did not need him dead as much as she needed to avoid detection, and any death within the school would set off one ward or another. At first she had wondered how the Ministry officials were not constantly responding to alerts, but they effectively were, unless what had happened to activate the ward could be determined without their arrival and deemed innocuous.</p><p>The following morning she hoped nothing of interest had been discovered by the phonographic wards, but there was no more time to be worried anyway. She was down in the potions classroom before breakfast, loading up an assortment of illegal vials with the illegal brews, the ones that were complete, anyway. Several others, like the sleeping draught, had been stewing as red herrings. <em>We still need time for the rest of the potions, but it's better to have a few of them on me, otherwise Slughorn might switch them out. I don't know what his game is, but there are too many ways for him to screw me on this not to take precautions. At the same time, I need to act like I trust him.</em></p><p>The first class was History, and they were going over the witch hunts, with material from new text books, as she might have expected at this point. There was nothing fundamentally different in the books from what they had been learning so far, except the people who apparently were using the witch burnings as fun ways to be tickled were more commonly pure bloods. If the last week had seen her try to keep a low profile, this week she tried not to exist entirely. She answered the questions in class, she did everything she could to keep from acting too differently, but she made herself as small as possible and never said anything to anyone or even looked at them.</p><p>Hannah was aware, of course, that students who were suspected of blood purism tried to keep a low profile, which was welcomed by the majority of the school, since it made them easy to spot and made them look less threatening; the pressure they exerted on suspects seemed to be having an effect. Fortunately for her it would not make them any more suspicious of her, since that was almost entirely impossible. Apparently the real blood purists were the pure bloods who denied being purists, since they benefitted from purism. The pure bloods who were the least suspicious were the ones who were actively trying to kill other pure bloods, but that was not permitted.</p><p>At the present, killing pure bloods was considered regular murder, while killing anyone else was a purity crime. Regular murder was forbidden, but it was a lower priority crime. <em>It's kind of disgusting that they have to tell people that it's illegal.</em></p><p>Looking through the publicly available information about students between classes, and as she expected, the enforcer she met last night was roughly three quarters pure, meaning he was out to prove himself. Her lycanthropy put her up on the danger rating, as expected, but it only applied during full moons. She went through most of the day without being bothered, though she was painfully aware of the looks she was receiving as always. Refraining from challenging the teachers on anything, students were perhaps more suspicious of her because they were used to her having some question about the material being different or her asking why they were not using wands. <em>I just can't fucking win, can I? </em>It reminded her of something Ron was always saying.</p><p>As expected, she was ambushed about the potions by the enforcer she had put to sleep earlier. A teacher whose name she did not remember was accompanying him.</p><p>"That's the one, professor, it's the werewolf."</p><p>"Excuse me, I haven't been in my beast form all week," she explained, as if offended.</p><p>"Professor, I saw her last night- she used the Draught of Living Death on me, and knocked me out- that's why I was discovered in a classroom in the morning."</p><p>"I don't believe that happened. I was in the dorm, though Leanne was not there." She squinted. "Aren't you Eugene Green? The mostly pure blood? I'm half straight down the middle." She walked out of the room and let the investigation sort itself out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. The Dark Fortress</h2></a>
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    <p>Draco's dark shields were improving. It meant his moderate successes managed to inflate his sin of pride, the shield that could dismiss all affronts. From what little he understood of the magical theory, the spell form was attaching his soul to itself, grounding it and making it more resistant to the effects of dark magic. If it had not been clear to him that the continued use of the dark arts would change him, it was clear now.</p><p>He had told his vassals both about Evan and about the Dark Lord being their Headmaster.</p><p>"How long has he been Karkaroff?" Derrick had asked. He was the first to speak after a long silence.</p><p>"Only just before second year started, there was a meeting at the Manor. It was my first introduction to most of the Death Eaters. Consequently, I did not make particular note of it when Amycus dragged in a man who was bound in chains."</p><p>"You mentioned something about that," Bole said. The young man had a surprisingly good memory. <em>At the same time, you didn't make anything of it either.</em></p><p>"When the train stopped the year after that, it was determined that a wizard had been found in the tracks. I remember leaking the information to get an investigation started, because at the time we were trying to distract from Umbridge, but it was revealed the only place from whence he might have escaped was the Manor. I realized we had kept him there for a year, and my mother explained that the elves had been getting information out of him under her orders. Greyback took his turn at some point, but I suspect the only reason for that is because he leads a faction of his own."</p><p>"Did they find anything? I remember the investigation hitting a dead end."</p><p>"The old magicks protecting the family home were more than enough to keep the investigators from doing more than getting lost. MacNair was working for the Ministry at the time, and he incinerated the body, so the Ministry never figured out who he was."</p><p>"How did you figure out he was Karkaroff?" Goyle asked. Nott had been strangely silent.</p><p>"The timing worked out a little too well. No one knew where the Dark Lord went after stealing the Philosopher's Stone, and Karkaroff was one of the ones who did not come when called. There is nothing a loyalist hates more than a Death Eater who got away, and he was a snitch besides." If the vassals had read anything about the end of the old war, they would have read about his trial where he gave up several names. <em>They were meant to read it, anyway, but they may have left it to Nott. </em>"When Evan left for Durmstrang, I had expected to communicate with him on a regular basis, yet he seemed to disappear as quickly and quietly as the Lord Voldemort. Did anyone ever tell you that he once applied for the Defense job at Hogwarts?"</p><p>"Guess that's why it's cursed," Goyle muttered at length. Draco shrugged with his eyebrows. Some of his father's friends had theorized as much.</p><p>"At any rate, enough was evident that I was willing to accuse our esteemed Headmaster of being our master, in private of course, and I was proven correct." It was better not to mention the manner in which his theory was proven.</p><p>"How'd he end up under the train?" Derrick asked.</p><p>"If there can be certainty of the validity of the source, he would have to have had help getting out. One of the elves might well have allowed him to abscond, yet he would have had only hours before recapture under the best of circumstances. The train was an improbable promise of salvation, but he must have guessed it was a magical train that would be able to stop suddenly, and therefore his only hope. His only way of stopping it was to stand on the tracks, but the conductor would not have reacted in time. There are numerous reasons for this. Firstly, he had no reason to expect anyone to be on the tracks, since there are muggle-repelling charms and everyone else has better sense. Secondly, even if it is theoretically possible for the train to stop immediately, there may not have been a control for that. Using the momentum arrest charm would have killed everyone on board. Lastly, the conductor might have killed him intentionally."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"There was an old trick where thieves would stand out in front of horse-drawn carriages and the horses would stop rather than running someone over. As soon as they stopped, brigands swooped in and robbed everyone inside. The school had already suffered a Death Eater attack; it would have seemed reasonable we would have stopped the train, when there would have been no teachers around."</p><p>"Why didn't we?" Nott asked. "The iron was hot for the steel of the school. Had we seized it at the time, it would not have been laid to waste." It was difficult to disagree with his words. All the same, the Malfoy heir had an answer.</p><p>"Snape suggested it before last year, but the Dark Lord had lost interest in having most of the little witches and wizards in Britain as hostages." In truth he had hardly thought of it; perhaps the reason was that the death of Dumbledore was part of the plan one way or another, and no one else could keep him from taking the school, but it was a moot point. It was not the first time a decision of their master had been difficult to explain. Nagging thoughts told him he had never heard any of the brilliance so evident in the works of Cantankerous Nott or Hydre Malfoy in the Lord Voldemort, and it was entirely possible his mind was more academic than strategic, but he remembered they were within range of his abilities of Legilimency, making such thoughts unwise.</p><p>"That's not why you called us here, though," Goyle said, perhaps simply remembering it.</p><p>"We must leave for Nurmengard as soon as possible," Draco explained without preamble. "Evan is trying to kill our enemies himself; the wise thing to do is leave him to it." The vassals would know that taking him with them on their mission was out of the question. Because they could not use him, and because he had his own agenda, he was effectively an enemy. "Nott,"</p><p>"The portkeys are arranged, yet fortuitous as our searches for them have been, the law remains an issue. Leaving school would mean our expulsion, and being caught in the act would mean our imprisonment." <em>Portkeys might be against the local magical law, but the Dark Lord will not remove me from his school for carrying out a task he asked of me. </em>The way he had posed it to his followers was that it was a mission of utmost importance, and the Death Eaters were simply occupied with missions of even greater importance. In truth, he knew virtually nothing of what they had been doing, except that his father was buying up fashionable properties on the continent with gold from the Stone. It was a task of uncertain purpose, to be sure, but in all honesty he had never had as much fun doing the bidding of the Lord Voldemort.</p><p>The four of them set out without further hesitation. It was dark already, and there was nothing more than a few sentinels to keep students from leaving at night. Generally, a young wizard was more likely to be expelled than escape, so the school rarely wasted resources keeping students in. He had already come up with an escape route, not that it was necessary as they were only going to the nearest town. Like Hogsmeade, the place popped up as a way of parting the pupils with their parents' pecuniary provisions. He expected it suffered from some inactivity during the previous decade, but that was the region.</p><p>Nott had asked a pair of wizards from Kyrgyzstan about where they could get portkeys, but they wanted information on Evan, which was necessarily a risk, but Draco had told him to go ahead with the deal. They insisted on retrieving the portkeys themselves, but it would be impossible to bring them back to the school, which meant taking them to a dead drop location. <em>It will not really be a dead drop, of course. They expect him to come alone to retrieve them, at which point they will strike. </em>He cursed Weasley for making him grateful for the painful lessons in rudimentary strategy, but prepared for it all the same. He had the other three wait for their man to be ambushed, confident he could maintain a mental link.</p><p>"What'll we do when they jump him?" Goyle asked.</p><p>"They will not be far. They have the portkeys, but they want more information. My vassal was either unwilling or unable to provide them with any weaknesses of the Heir of Slytherin." <em>Perhaps I should have told him the one I know. </em>It was a little embarrassing, not having seen it before; he should have expected an upbringing outside of wizarding high society would leave a young man totally ignorant of what went on around him. To have laid claim to a witch, while not a shred of loyalty existed within her showed a pitiable lack of awareness and a susceptibility to manipulation.</p><p>
  <em>It appears I am accosted.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Not to worry.</em>
</p><p>The brief exchange was followed by Draco mounting his broom and flying to Nott's position, stunning one of the older students before he could land a curse. His vassal was shielding, which made sense as all he needed to do was wait for backup, and the other three were not far behind. The other assailant surrendered rather than being cursed several times or potentially dying. <em>Killing either one seems unnecessary. It will only make us less popular when we return here.</em></p><p>Digging through the Kyrgyz wizard's thoughts, he only confirmed what he had been thinking. The portkey would take them to Austria, close enough to the prison, but the bizarre nature of the request made the two of them curious. They also needed ammunition against Evan.</p><p>"Do your best to prepare your mental shields," he cautioned. <em>I know not what the term for Occlumency is around here. </em>"It is my belief that he envies my abilities in the mind arts, and may emulate them before long."</p><p>They used the portkeys and were off.</p><p>Addressing a confused look on Bole's face, he explained that it hardly seemed the gentleman to kill wizards who had surrendered, and the information he gave them was something they might use, even though he could pass it off as false, since the Heir never told him anything about learning Legilimency. Taking stock of his surroundings, it appeared to Draco that they were in a thick forest, a protected magical area of Austria. The country had one of the strictest interpretations of Secrecy in the entire world, despite not having extremely strict laws on anything else, and it formed a stark contrast between the muggle areas and the magical areas. Hungary, to the east, was a strange sort of magical drought, with a smaller than expected wizarding population, and almost total muggle control over the land.</p><p>Consequently, Austria, with a massive magical community, had to take greater pains to keep it quiet. More so than anything else, this reality is what annoyed Grindelwald to the extent that he would do away with the Statute and conquer the muggles, given the opportunity. As they learned in Magical History, his main challenge was the fact that he could only be in one place at a time. He had more than enough power to destroy a city, but taking over so much as one country would take years without a following. Albus Dumbledore had a following of his own, and by splitting off Grindelwald's cause for some reason, he poached many of the young wizards who would have been willing to help him do the conquering. <em>That was why they had to fight. That was why today we do not live in a world convulsed by war.</em></p><p>It had been a difficult thing to accept, that his old enemy had essentially saved the magical world from a dark wizard, but wizardkind was not ready for a war with the muggles. Perhaps Grindelwald would have slowed down his campaign once he alone controlled the hearts and minds of young witches and wizards, and perhaps he would have only declared war once it could be certain they would win, but his history indicated no such inclination to caution. <em>The Dark Lord may believe what he will about his chances in an open war, but we blood purists have broader concerns.</em></p><p>The castle was in sight.</p><p>It was a single, massive tower surrounded by a round wall with crenellations like a proper fortress, only the tower was where prisoners were kept, rather than being used as a panopticon. Draco was sure the dark wizard intended some kind of symbolism with the reversal of the design, but the reasoning escaped him and he could hardly care about it.</p><p>"Malfoy, are we really going to free him?" Goyle asked. "What if he wrecks the whole world?"</p><p>"He should have some sense of gratitude to our master, yet the distraction he would cause is the purpose of his freedom. Should he attempt to establish control over Austria, their magical government will request help in dealing with him, and as the Death Eaters are claiming credit for his release, they will most likely be owed help from Britain and her ministry. What they will be able to spare will not be enough, so they will either send more, or Austria will have to have help from elsewhere on the continent."</p><p>It had only been the previous day that the Lord Voldemort had told him about the plan and how he intended to use the release to his advantage, so he did not blame the vassals for not being up on the intricacies of the plan.</p><p>"Won't we really be responsible for whatever he does if he gets out?" Derrick asked.</p><p>"The Dark Lord will see us dead if we fail." His voice was allotted a grim note. "Our actions are his responsibility, whether the wands exist to hold him to it or not. I have no faith in his concern for our fates, but if the past few years have been any indication, this is all in accord with his plans. He will not allow another dark wizard to poach his supporters."</p><p>He was lying through his teeth, but there was little choice to be had. Unless they meant to strike out on their own, which would mean the deaths of several of their parents, they would have to return to the watchful eye of their master in Durmstrang, and he would know if they had succeeded or not.</p><p>Their plan for infiltrating the fortress was simple enough, and the only real advantage they had was the fact that absolutely no one expected it, or at least that was what intelligence had suggested. Without any obvious targets to kill, except the British Ministry, which was not on the list for some reason, the Death Eaters had been tasked or tasked themselves with gathering intelligence and forming alliances internationally. They had no apparent intention to ask for help in what was obviously the battleground, the tipping point for the war to save the world of magic, but they seemed to be fostering good relations to at least hedge out the possibility of Crouch recruiting foreign help. Lestrange and Travers were sent to Africa to share research with prominent groups of dark wizards, but most of the senior staff favored European targets, with the other Lestrange going to the Black Sea Sorcerers, his wife going to Ireland, where a handful of Slytherins had ended up, Greyback had something of a cult of personality in the Baltics among werewolves, and Snape of all people was appealing to the academics of dark magic in the Visegrad States. His father had gone to France, as expected, though Selwyn surprised a few of them by going to Quebec, where he was welcomed with kisses and sparks of every color shot into the sky.</p><p>"Goyle, you're up," Derrick said. Draco had an idea to keep them all informed of each other through the mind arts, but that would mean all of them getting caught if one of them were subject to a mental scan. As the visitor, his job was to perform an initial survey of the place, something Nott could not have gained by reading. The actual operation would have to be held off for days to be conducted during the appropriate phase of the moon, as the full moon favored authority and order according to the Egyptians, but they needed to get a feel for the place in advance.</p><p>The Beaters had been asked to fly around checking for detection charms, but a prison that contained one prisoner could not be expected to be the ultimate height of security. Their knowledge of charms and enchantments was improving, but not quite at the level he would have hoped. They were average students held back by a lack of effort and a preference for Quidditch more than anything else. With that out of the way, and with no witches around for the impressing, they were mostly paying attention in class, though he could tell they were glad to be taking a leave of absence. He could not say the same of Nott, who had the job of explaining everything he knew about the castle that was not already mutually understood. As with Draco, Hogwarts had been a second home, and the new school offered less opportunity for the study of the dark arts than he had expected.</p><p>"Grindelwald is before all else and when all else has passed, conceited and practical. If a measure of security did not need to be in place because the others were sufficient, it did not manifest itself his mind to put it in place." <em>Everything should be secured by one or two simple, conceivably impassible measures. </em>Nott went on to explain that the design philosophy was to exclude the possibility of workarounds to the defenses rather than piling curses and enchantments on one after the other. Keeping things simple would have allowed the presiding dark wizard to demoralize the prisoners with the certainty of their eternal sentences as well as predict the way that his enemies might try to break them out, but really the idea was to demonstrate the superiority of magic and the absolutism it entailed over the muddle-headed muggles.</p><p>
  <em>Magic is magic, it cannot be explained or overwritten or circumvented or mitigated, except by magic itself.</em>
</p><p>"If he used warding, he would have made the prisoners impossible to free by means of an inner ward that killed them when the outer ward was removed," Draco ventured, remembering the trick the Ministry used the previous year. It was a wonder no one succeeded in tripping them, but after the destruction of the school, the prisoners who had been kept in the Chamber were definitely dead.</p><p>"Your powers of divination require no stars, I see. It is my suspicion that the Aurors mirrored the concept from Nurmengard for their own purposes after the untimely ruin of Azkaban." Loath though he was to admit it, the failure of that particular prison was only partially the ingenuity of the Death Eaters; each one of them who survived separately commented that the prison's defenses were poorly understood by the human contingent as a result of years of application, as well as overconfidence in the dementors. The propaganda message that the island was their home and the prisoners were only there coincidentally was something that the prison staff themselves had come to believe, and it did not occur to them that they could be persuaded to leave. Getting them to go to Hogwarts was a risk, but it was the closest target.</p><p>What concerned him was that the similarity between the designs required that someone knew about the castle in front of which they stood. A sound behind him had him drawing his wand. He was ready to cast any manner of shield at any point in time, but the sound might have come from an animal and he could block more quickly than spells could fly as long as he was aware of it. Even as a first year he was good at deflecting spells.</p><p>"Please, Draco, if I desired to kill you I already would have," a suave voice intoned. "I don't see why we can't have a pleasant reunion, between us old friends." Stepping into the space between the trees was none other than Blaise Zabini.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Interlude: Lost in the Kalahari</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius Black was nothing if not resourceful.</p><p>The central challenge to locating a lost city was finding someone who knew where it was and could not for some reason apparate there and back. <em>I reckon that's how they keep it hidden from foreign wizards like us. </em>Hogwarts, Charlie knew, was secured by all manners of charms, enchantments, and wards, but someone could still walk in from Hogsmeade, which was not nearly as well-hidden; there were stores there getting customers from the rustics in the surrounding area. <em>The difference is, even children who can't apparate are taken there. Most people who've been don't know where it is or how to get there normally, but Apparation only requires you to know your immediate surroundings; you don't have to be able to point to the place on a globe. </em>He could not say if there had been experiments to determine as much, but there were secret locations that his company stored dragons to keep them hidden from poachers, and he had explained as much in an earlier conversation.</p><p>"What does your firm do to keep the dragons hidden? How do you get paid for it?" the older wizard had asked.</p><p>"A few different governments contract us. We're also doing research for them, so it cuts down on the incentive for random people to go after them in the first place. If the information's out in the open, they don't have an excuse."</p><p>"I see. Where do you generally put them?"</p><p>"Loads of places out in Eastern Europe are off the maps. Even Dracula used to live out there and no one caught him for centuries. They twisted the space around their borders to keep the Magicians of Light out ages ago and they've been at it ever since. I really couldn't tell you where some of them are; they took me to most of the sites on my first day and I had to apparate there every time after that."</p><p>"You transport the dragons by side-along Apparation?"</p><p>"We contain them first, but that's pretty much our only option. If we're lucky we catch it while it's small." Most people were not aware dragons could be transported in such a way, but telling them that was all it took to clear up the confusion. It was like the time his father had to tell the muggles that the sphinxes lost their noses because Napoleon's men used them for target practice.</p><p>At any rate, they eventually succeeded in setting some ward traps for various growers in the region, getting ahold of one of them on his way back from the Lost City. Apologizing for their rudeness, they asked to be apparated to the place, and the rustic refused outright. Leaving that business to Sirius, Charlie went off to remove the rest of their traps. There was hardly any point in trapping some other magical farmer in something he had never seen in his life, though by the same rule, they might well have some unknown method of getting out. Around the time he returned, Sirius had the wizard talking in the Queen's English.</p><p>It was impossible to understand him, but it appeared the former prisoner had no such difficulty. It was not the first time he had understood someone speaking in another language, so either he knew some basic form of Legilimency or he had not been fucking with Charlie's head when he told him that dogs could always tell when people were lying. At any rate, the farmer agreed to apparate them to the outskirts of the Lost City, where he usually dropped off the crops.</p><p>"How is he being paid?" Charlie asked. Looking around briefly, he thought the farmhouse, as it were, seemed a little large for one person.</p><p>"I'm afraid that's the wrong part of the sentence to spark your interest." <em>What is it then, that he's only allowed in the outskirts?</em> "We're hundreds of miles away from anywhere people generally speak English. He could have picked it up dealing with the wizards of the Lost City, but why would they speak it? Where did you learn English?" he asked. Somehow his voice was calm and threatening at the same time. He seemed to have an infinite amount of violence, and an infinite amount of patience.</p><p>"It was in a book. They trade many things in-" Sirius waved his wand, cutting off the rustic's airflow. <em>What the hell is that spell? </em>It was clear enough he detected Charlie's confusion.</p><p>"He's lying. Don't ask me how I know; I don't like to give it away." They gave their host a moment to catch his breath. <em>It makes sense that he's not supposed to give away the secret of the city's location, but is he really bound to keep it on pain of death? Why? I guess that's how they keep it secret, if they really, really want to-</em></p><p>"Wait a tick; I think he really can't tell us where it is."</p><p>"Unbreakable Vow?" the older wizard asked. He waved his wand over the man's wrist, as if he could find some trace of dark magic that way.</p><p>"There's another way. Have you heard of the Goblet of Fire?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Basically, it's an unbreakable magical contract. If you agree to it, then no matter what, you can't violate it. It's not that they don't let him into the city; they just don't let him talk about the city. Somehow the 'outskirts', if they exist, aren't covered in the wording of the contract." <em>Around here, I reckon it'd be an oral contract. The muggles only developed things like written languages when they thought they needed them, and we're even worse about that. If there's a magical way around that amount of work, they'll do it.</em></p><p>"He wouldn't be able to tell us if he were bound by such a contract. What you're proposing can't be proven false any more than it can be proven true."</p><p>"We don't need certainty for this. We're not going to get lost in the desert or anything if we bark up the wrong tree." <em>No matter where we go, we can apparate out, unless there are jinxes. </em>"Well, one weakness to the idea is that the city itself might have a jinx or something preventing apparation."</p><p>"That would make more sense than letting everyone who's been there before just apparate straight in. It's a second measure of security so they can survive an invasion, and so that if someone happens to wander to the city at random, then he or she can't escape without disapparating from the proper place. It seems more likely they would have a small area on the outskirts where you can't see the city that serves as an apparation point."</p><p>"Don't take us to the city," Sirius ordered. "Take us there."</p><p>The rustic shook his head. The former prisoner kicked him in the knee.</p><p>"What are you doing?! He can't take us there directly- we have to try a different approach."</p><p>"Either he can't or you've thought of a convenient excuse for him. If he knows any way of helping us, he'll do the smart thing eventually." Sirius cast some unknown curse and a red, burning stripe moved through the air to the man's skin, where it wrapped around in a spiral and burned. "The Blacks used to take down lines of troops with that little number. Used on a single man, well, it's not pleasant."</p><p>They waited. They stared.</p><p>"He doesn't know anything," Charlie insisted. "He can't do anything."</p><p>"That's what he wants us to think."</p><p>"Why would he go so far?"</p><p>"How far would you go to protect Hogwarts? Or the dragons?"</p><p>"Either of those can take care of themselves- at least that's what I thought." He had heard of the school's destruction. Sirius said it was nothing next to Dumbledore's death; it was just a castle without him there, but for Charlie it had been the end of an era. "It took more than two random blokes to knock down Hogwarts."</p><p>"If we get in, who knows how many others get in?" the former prisoner asked rhetorically. "The Death Eaters would have Hogwarts if they managed to get even one of them inside; you told me as much." <em>I shouldn't have told him how Ginny managed to fly the coop. I shouldn't have asked Ron in the first place. I don't know why it matters, not really.</em></p><p>"Well, what do we do to prove that we have good intentions?" he asked, suspecting the answers.</p><p>"We can't. We set traps on several farms over the last few days so we could get information out of a rustic. We're trying to get into a city we're not supposed to know exists." He turned back to the wizard lying on the ground. "Hear that? We've no other option. I don't want to hear any excuses. I only like screaming and useful information."</p><p>The younger wizard was trying to think of something else to suggest, but it seemed like his mind moved too quickly to come up with anything, somehow. An Unbreakable Vow had the potential of working, but it could also just kill the rustic, and at this point that would be the easy way out. He knew it was not helpful to the situation, but more than anything else he wanted to know what had happened to his acquaintance to make him so cruel.</p><p>"Sirius, just stop- we've dragged this man out of his home and we've tortured him into helping us when we have no reason to believe he can help us. He's said something about the outskirts, because that's some kind of loophole, but if there were any other loophole, he'd have come up with it already. I can't prove this won't help, but it really doesn't look like it will." It appeared the animagus was forming a response. "Before all that, though, doesn't this just seem wrong to you?"</p><p>Silence came. Charlie wondered if that was how it always was, that it became easier and easier for good men to justify whatever actions seemed necessary in the war against evil, but there were no wars between good and evil, only between men. <em>We still have to get there somehow.</em></p><p>"I just want you to ask yourself exactly how this is helping. Do you know Legilimency?"</p><p>"No," the former prisoner responded at length. "For the record, I am of the belief that any action can be justified by its motivation. Though the idea has been associated with contemptable people, the ends well and truly justify the means. This does not extend to the results justifying the means; results sought out by the evil are sought for evil reasons."</p><p>It seemed there was quite a bit more to say on the subject, and Charlie had more than enough questions to ask, challenges to raise, but it seemed the current prisoner had something to say. Sirius lifted the curse for a moment and allowed him to catch his breath.</p><p>"Are you... not one of them?"</p><p>"Death Eaters? No." There had not been a point in saying that before it seemed he had a reason to believe it. "My brother is, though. You might have met him."</p><p>"I have. I was afraid you were more of them."</p><p>"Fair. I don't reckon most of my old friends could tell your dark wizards apart from their family members." <em>He still doesn't have any hard proof that we're not working for Voldemort. This could have been some kind of clever act that we use on all the people we torture. </em>He mentally shook his head. <em>Might be he just looked in our eyes and saw it. Might be he and Sirius aren't as different as he thought.</em></p><p>They helped the rustic wizard to his feet and he briefly explained what Regulus had been doing in the Lost City.</p><p>"One day we were our own, the next day everyone belonged to him."</p><p>"Imperius..." the older wizard muttered. "Go on. It's a curse that works on people with weaker wills than yours." <em>It can't have just been the curse. There are supposed to be signs of it, so they must have done something to keep people from realizing they're being controlled. You also can't control a whole city.</em></p><p>"Perhaps it will be better if you see it yourself." He extended a hand. <em>Can he apparate without a wand? I guess if you have to go to the same place every day, you could probably adjust to it if you tried.</em></p><p>In an instant they were in a vast plain, thick, tan tufts of grass dotting the red landscape. Piles of rock that looked like hewn stone were strewn about. Short trees could be seen in the distance, as could what appeared to be a lake, but was an off-white color. <em>Sediment? Clay?</em></p><p>"What's that?" he asked, pointed at one of the rock piles.</p><p>"Dolerite," the rustic explained. "The do-no-magics thought they were all that remained of the lost city, if ever it were," he continued, shaking his head slightly. "Perhaps we could be hiding most of our population better than we do, but some things remain a secret even to most wizards." He started walking in a seemingly pointless direction and the pair of them followed. "There is a good reason we keep the Lost City hidden. Few know its true name."</p><p><em>Guess I should assume you're not going to tell me. </em>There was a herd of black and white gazelles chewing on the flora. The sight of them called to mind all the magical creatures of the continent, and how he learned they were not actively being hidden, like the dragons. Old Professor Kettleburn had explained that somehow the muggles believing in them was all it took to keep Secrecy from being ruined just like that. No one would ever go near where the grootslangs were supposed to live, not to hunt them, not to guide foreign tourists with cameras; they seemed to regard such things as tempting fate.</p><p>The rustic wizard stopped, turned at about a ninety degree angle and kept walking. Sirius took his exact path rather than cutting the corner.</p><p>"What does my brother want with your secrets?" he asked. "As far as I know he no longer serves the Lord Voldemort. I would have thought being permitted to reside in the city until the end of time would have contented him." The older wizard was making reference to one of the more bizarre tales they had heard about the place while trying to find it a few days earlier, that all of its residents would be there for eternity as long as they never left.</p><p>Their guide shook his head. <em>If he doesn't know, then we'll just have to see for ourselves.</em></p><p>It seemed like an age that they walked, but his anticipation worked in odd ways when he had no idea where he was going. Charlie nearly bumped into Sirius when he stopped suddenly, though he could not tell why they were stopped, they only turned after waiting a whole minute. <em>Do the directions to get to this place really require stopping? </em>Never that good with magical theory, he expected there could be a million and a half reasons for that to be the case, but he would never know them. It seemed unlikely anything about this was written down. <em>I reckon he could also just be tired.</em></p><p>"Do you levitate your crops to the door?"</p><p>"Not every time," the rustic answered. "Before we arrive, there is a warning I must say."</p><p>"Speak your piece."</p><p>"Do you know how I know the way?" he asked as he started walking again.</p><p>"I would think you just followed someone here every day for years until you got it," Charlie guessed.</p><p>"No, that was not to be. The way looks different every time," <em>Damn. Now I've got no idea how we're not lost. </em>The foreign wizards just waited for him to start talking again. "The magic of the mind came here from Arabia. I do not know if it originated somewhere else. In the Lost City, it has been practiced for as long as we can remember."</p><p>"That's how you educate your young, then," Sirius ventured. They had heard nothing of the city from Wahde, who would have known about it if there were any students at Uagadou who came from there.</p><p>"Books and maps were never necessary. We never wanted them when we learned how to speak in the minds of others. Please understand, we were many different tribes before. Now we are one, and we have no need of language."</p><p>"Everyone knows it?"</p><p>"It is as easy as learning to walk. Children learn it from their parents instead of language. Some of us must deal with the do-no-magics, though, and some of us must leave our young among them." <em>Squibs.</em></p><p>The younger wizard wanted to tell the man off, but a backward glance held him back. <em>He's right. They've been completely cut off from the world for millennia. There's no reason they would have the same values. </em>When he tried to be charitable about it, he supposed the squibs would be left out when they could not communicate with anyone, perhaps even their own family members.</p><p>They arrived to the sight of a low-walled city, what looked like stone walls with thin logs jammed in them as if for ease of climbing, which seemed counter-intuitive. <em>What good are walls if anyone can get in?</em> He shook his head. <em>No, there must be some purpose; I just wouldn't know it. </em>Walls as defensive measures were almost entirely obsolete in the magical world anyways, where everyone could fly. It was odd that he even saw them that way. He noticed the rustic waving at one of the sentinels. The great wooden doors swung open.</p><p>Preparing himself for what he imagined would feel mentally invasive, he guessed Sirius would be better at resisting it, even without any formal training or study in Occlumency. <em>Well, I don't know that. He might have looked into it during the war. He was an Order member.</em></p><p>As he started hearing a hundred thoughts at once, his memories of his twin brothers being involved with the Order themselves felt like they were being lost to the wind. It went without saying that he had to be careful in such a bizarre environment, but there was no way that Goldstein and Regulus would not know they were coming.</p><p>"Sirius, I don't think we'll manage sneaking up on them," he said, scanning the crowded city. The buildings appeared to be made out of the same clay and stone as the outer walls, though none of the narrow logs decorated them. "At least they'll stand out as much as we do."</p><p>Standing still, he tried to get his footing in the current of thoughts. If he could find their enemies, he could determine their location, and then they would be on even footing, or as close as it was going to get. He picked out the former Hogwarts student, whom he had at least met before, but the location of the other one escaped him.</p><p>"I've got a read on Goldstein," he said, but again there was no answer. "Sirius?" Looking over, the man was oddly silent, muscles in his face twitching as he remained stock-still. He was whispering something over and over again; Charlie had half a mind to scan their surroundings for dementors, but that was impossible; it was too hot for them...</p><p>Things clicked into place as a boy and a girl rushed to the knees of the rustic wizard. His wand was out, he scanned around for Regulus as he tried to maintain his idea of where the other one was, but they both had to be moving. <em>This isn't working- we have to get out of here-</em></p><p>A little hand gripped his sleeve and he saw that it was the daughter, holding what looked like a toy wand. Conjured ropes hit him from the back and he dropped his own, but no one seemed terribly concerned, least of all Sirius, who had not moved in all the time he had been standing there. The face of Regulus Black looked down on him as he struggled to right himself in his bonds.</p><p>"Good afternoon, Weasley. It's a wonder what the Imperius Curse does to a place like this."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Evasive Action</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Auror's curse had struck Macmillan in the back, and it seemed to be malignant, to put it in terms Ron understood. Lovegood had never seen anything like it, but suggested eliciting the help of a few magical creatures he was not quite sure were real. The effects reminded him of the time he was lying in bed, riddled with curses, but getting the boy to Bill was less of an option in this instance. The Order could not know of their existence, and the last he heard from the twins, so a few months ago now, their eldest brother was trying to get information out of the Magicians of Light, whoever they were.</p><p>They eventually managed to get the Hufflepuff to stabilize, so that the curse was no longer invisibly tearing though his muscles and bones, as he described it, but he was still immobile, and still apparently unharmed. <em>I reckon at least he's got a little credibility, though. There's no way a Ministry official would curse him if he really were one of them. </em>He wished he could have taken the Death Eater back with them, but his ability to apparate people out was limited in number and it seemed there was no definitive proof the man was a Ministry agent, since he really had a dark mark. <em>I hadn't even heard of that, but it makes sense Voldemort would have some way of identifying his servants.</em></p><p>Trying to figure out all the motives involved was all but hopeless. He had run a nearly endless stream of theories past an increasingly annoyed Harper, who seemed more interested in coming up with reasons his ideas were all wrong than proposing any of his own. It could not have been that the dark wizard had a fake mark; he had heard about them from Malfoy and they were impossible to fake; they were a unique curse invented by the Dark Lord and transfigured skin could not replicate it. That the Auror knew about it was some kind of anomaly. Ron suggested that she could have been working for Voldemort, somehow, but the Slytherin negated that as well. Anyone under the slightest suspicion of being a blood purist would have been removed from office when Crouch took over. It was possible the Death Eater had imperiused her that day to cover for him, but that was a presumption on top of a presumption.</p><p>It was bizarre, but at length he was forced to admit the whole thing had been a genuine surprise for all parties, or that was the most likely conclusion at least. There was a chance Macmillan's intel was mistaken, that what was meant to be a false flag was actually a genuine attack, though Harper was suspicious of the round, black shields that could supposedly protect against dark curses. It seemed that the killing curses were merely passing through the shields, which suggested to him that it the shields were only an illusion. <em>That was the false flag, then. They'd planned one, but the dark wizard must have sniffed it out. Then he attacked them when he knew they'd never see it coming.</em></p><p>Even days after the event, though, he was still confused about exactly what the Death Eater had accomplished.</p><p>"I'm going to Ireland," he announced at one point. "Someone needs to check on Mafalda."</p><p>"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Ronald," Lovegood said. "My father and I had to cancel our expedition to search for the Gelding Oz." <em>Is that another creature that's not real? I don't even want to know.</em></p><p>"Anti-apparation?" he asked. The Ravenclaw nodded. He tried to be annoyed at the Irish for preventing travel like that, since they were supposed to be against the British Ministry as of late, but he could be certain that they expected an invasion to suppress their sudden separatist revival, and just because they were against the British Ministry did not mean they were vastly different ideologically. With their old school, ages ago, founded by the dark witch Maeve, they had somewhat more respect for the study of the dark arts, but they abhorred the blood purists and would use any means necessary to oppose them. They had threatened to break off during the last war, if for no other reason than to be allowed to pursue the Death Eaters in their own country themselves, but it ultimately came to nothing. What ended up changing the public perception of the secession was the fake intel that suggested dark wizards had infested the local governments of Ireland, the mayor of Dublin facing some of the most commonly repeated accusations.</p><p>
  <em>I'll still need some way of getting in touch with her. If I lose track of her entirely, I might as well tell her she's been left to her own devices.</em>
</p><p>He did not anticipate she was in immediate danger, but he felt responsible, and it was odd she had made no effort to contact him. There was a chance she had sent an owl to the old apartment they had been using in the muggle part of the city, but he had been putting off apparating there because he hated the place. Though he had always known he loved the blue skies of Ottery St. Catchpole, and the open grounds of Hogwarts, he was starting to discover a sense of claustrophobia, no matter how many times they changed hiding places. <em>Maybe it's just hiding that I don't like.</em></p><p>Digging through a stack of letters and packages at the old place, there were more wards than he could count, so he just summoned a few of the bigger things from the walk, trying not to set any of them off. Hermione had told him the effect of removing a ward could be worse than losing whatever access it barred, but he expected most of them were Trace types, just warnings set out around suspicious properties. His father had done as much every time they were investigating someone who had a thought to make a killing off the muggles. <em>Wish I knew what he was up to.</em></p><p>He removed a harmless ward off a small package, opening it to find a mirror. <em>Weird. </em>There was a note.</p><p>
  <em>Dear Ron,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I'm taking to my second year of magical education at Seneolas without too many problems. I've made a friend named Garaidh. At your convenience, please say my name into the mirror. I can usually talk around seven in the evening.</em>
</p><p>He apparated back.</p><p>"Ever heard of a two-way mirror?" he asked Macmillan, finding him lying on his stomach. Remembering how being cursed and injured felt, he expected the Hufflepuff wanted to be useful.</p><p>"There's some kind of charm- Protean, I presume- it's some advanced variant of the Protean Charm that links two mirrors. I believe, as it has been explained to me, that the charm allows each mirror to show the opposite reflection." He nodded along with the explanation. He could have sworn Hannah told him that the same kind of charm was used to alter wards all around the country.</p><p>"Charm's applied to the surface of whatever you're warding, then?" he asked, mostly talking to himself. "Just when I needed a way to get in touch with Mafalda." Without warning the surface of the mirror changed to show her working at her desk. She was a large room, but it seemed unlikely anyone else could hear him.</p><p>"Oh, there you are. I was wondering if I should have sent it to some other address."</p><p>"No, that was probably the cleverest thing. Whoever was warding the stuff that landed on the step wouldn't have any reason to be suspicious of a package from Ireland." He could not resist the urge to ask her a normal question like a normal person. "How is the school?"</p><p>"It's good, mostly. I think a lot of Slytherins and neutral students ended up going here." The Gryffindor remembered that there was a trickle out of the school between the time Voldemort came back and when it was destroyed. "Most of our classes are outside, but we live in these low huts. Somehow you just walk into one and you're in your own." He refrained from frowning. Hasty construction was to be expected.</p><p>Ron told her everything about the recent trip to the square in Diagon Alley where they had hoped to catch a false flag in action, but they had not even managed to save lives by preventing it. It was after that he came to a decision.</p><p>"We need you to be our link with the Order. My brothers can't find me anymore, and I think you're in the clear in terms of suspicion. They probably think we captured you." Mafalda shook her head.</p><p>"I went through virtually all the newspapers and my name was never mentioned among the people who escaped, died, or were arrested. Either I slipped through the cracks or they're using me as some sort of trap." It was something he had not considered before. He walked to a quieter area in the hideout and cast the muffling charm.</p><p>"Well, then you'll have to be as careful as they are," he decided. "We're no closer to getting the Stone from Voldemort; I don't think Crouch has any intention of going after it, so we have to do something. Have you seen Hestia? That witch who was teaching Neville a bit ago?"</p><p>"Seamus claims to have seen her. He is here, by the way."</p><p>"Not surprised," Ron answered, wondering if something like that would still irk Hermione, but she probably would not actually be surprised by the Irish kid going back to Ireland. At some point she had learned the difference between pattern recognition and stereotyping. "What's she been doing?"</p><p>"I don't know; he just claims that he is in touch with her. He has formed his own group."</p><p>"He was one of the leaders of the sort of Gryffindor vanguard against blood purism, so that makes sense." <em>Hannah would be asking if he and Lavender were still together. </em>He was temped to roll his eyes. "What are they actually doing?"</p><p>"They are doing a good job of keeping that secret, for one." Mafalda had her jaw propped up on the heel of her hand. <em>Must've been looking into it. </em>"Someone has learned the memory charm and they just wipe people's memories at will, like whenever there is a hint of a leak."</p><p>"Well, you wouldn't know him very well, but I reckon he'd be more likely to try to get the Irish government- whatever they're calling it, to go after Voldemort, but more importantly other children who don't agree with him. If there are Slytherins there, I'm betting they're his first target." She nodded.</p><p>"Most people believe their children should be in school, and there are not a lot of places for blood purists to send them. The New World is a complex landscape with different sorts of conflicts than we have here, so there is almost certainly no direct analogue for Death Eaters in most places."</p><p>"Really? They didn't set up an office in Montreal or New York or something?" She shook her head.</p><p>"It is not that they don't have blood purists, it's that America has always been a haven for practitioners of dark magic; unless I am mistaken, no curse is unforgivable. There are even war songs about using dark enchantments to keep the native wizards out of their territory. From what I heard in the dorm a year ago, what attracts a lot of people to supporting Voldemort and his followers is being able to push the frontiers of magic. They think everyone else is content to live in some kind of eternal stagnation until the muggles find us- well, that was a false premise last year. Some of the more normal people here are from the Ministry school, and they really do have lists of approved spells, potions, and theories.</p><p>His conversation with Mafalda did not last much longer. He knew she had been focusing on school, and there was the implication that he should be in school as well, but he would have been expelled for non-attendance before now. <em>I have to be out of school in order to fight. Even if I could find a school somewhere that wouldn't turn me over to the Hit Wizards, I wouldn't be able to do anything there.</em></p><p>It seemed every major event of the world was determined to pass him by without his having any say in it, if he knew about it in advance. Building a faction was perfectly necessary in order to accomplish anything, but his had hit a sort of plateau, now that he had found every discontented runaway on the island. They had failed to win the hearts and minds of the common people, they had yet to expose a false flag attack; they had yet to make any measure of progress against the machine of Crouch's government, and until he was defeated there was no hope of going after Voldemort; the regime had no reason to do anything while there was no threat of being overthrown; really his existence was part of what propped them up. Ballots had been canceled since there was a 'distinct chance dark magic had altered the votes, and that held again, they would suffer an attack by Death Eaters'.</p><p><em>It'd be easy for them to conduct a false flag attack on a voting venue, since I'd never be able to predict which one, and one attack would be enough for everyone to agree to shut the whole thing down. </em>It related back to his spat with Macmillan about the value of human life. He shook his head. If people in Britain simply did not value anything he valued, there was no point to any of his actions. If they did not value the truth, fairness, or anything but their own safety, they were doomed. Even if he had the stomach for it, imposing his values through controlled media or making them the goal of the laws was fruitless, even if he could get to that point. The only governments that lasted a remotely long time were the ones founded by the governed, giving them authority by believing in them.</p><p>"That's what it is, then." He stood up and went to find Lovegood. <em>It's people's beliefs. We can't make any progress until we get do something about the stranglehold the enemy has on everyone's brains. Even if we'd exposed a real attack on citizens and traced it back to Crouch, he could just have the papers deny it.</em></p><p>"How do you do, Ronald?" the Ravenclaw asked.</p><p>"It's a bit weird, actually. Everything's falling apart." Being honest with himself, he was not sure what face he was making, or what face he should be making. In his efforts to be a leader, he had worn a hard, blank expression for the past few days. <em>Can't let them know I'm worried or upset about anything.</em></p><p>"Things tend to do that sometimes."</p><p>"Does your dad still run that sill- the esteemed... publication known as <em>The Quibbler</em>?"</p><p>"Of course. Things have become a measure more difficult for him, since a handful of unidentified wizards killed a few of his writers." <em>How the hell does she just say things like that? </em>In truth, he was probably about as desensitized to death at this point, but she had acted like that as long as he could remember.</p><p>"Well, what if one of his writers interviewed us? Would he run it?"</p><p>"I believe so, but the writer would probably be arrested and have his memories searched. We don't have Hermione around to perform false memory charms."</p><p>"You couldn't do anything like that?" Legilimency had to at least be related.</p><p>"I'm sure it would take me less time to learn it. Perhaps a month instead of two." He waved the notion away.</p><p>"We don't know when we can get the interview together, but it doesn't matter. As long as we meet in some far-off location, they'll have no reason to think we're hiding in a theater in Diagon Alley. If we met in Australia, most people who read that the interview was there would probably think we were hiding there."</p><p>"If you intend to go anywhere out of the country, I would recommend doing it quickly," Harper muttered, looking over a newspaper. Ron could not tell if the disinterest in his expression was real. "The Ministry is moving to regulate Apparation, starting with the international variety, because several prominent Death Eaters have been spotted in various places on the continent." The Gryffindor nodded. From their side, it made sense to start characterizing blood purism as a foreign power, but keep ramping up attempts to 'root out blood purism' in Britain. Having 'declared war against Voldemort and all who support him', the with-them-or against-them mentality they pushed made everyone who disagreed an enemy. <em>They're not going to be particularly tolerant to enemy publishers, even if they've never said anything good about Death Eaters.</em></p><p>"We can't afford to move out permanently," he decided. "That'd be giving up- throwing away every advantage we have by the fact" -<em>the guess- </em>"that they don't know we're here."</p><p>"If we wanted to publish something and have Crouch not kill us for it, why not go to Russia or something?" the Slytherin asked, fingers against his temples.</p><p>"That'll <em>prove </em>we're Death Eaters!" Ron objected. "Why would you even suggest there specifically? Of all the countries in the world-"</p><p>"Are you doubting my loyalties?" He seemed tired rather than outraged.</p><p>"Who called your loyalties into question? Something to tell us?" <em>I can pass it off like I didn't know there were Death Eaters spotted there.</em></p><p>"You're an idiot, Weasley," Harper decided, leaving the room. Somehow pursuing him seemed less than worth it. <em>He wasn't running off to join the Death Eaters a few days ago. Lovegood would have read it out of his head. </em>As little as he liked it, he had already ordered her to get inside of an Auror's mind, and her failure did not mean he had not crossed that line. It was only yesterday when he asked her to briefly scan the Slytherin's memories for anything related to blood purists, any thought of rejoining them. She reluctantly agreed, having practiced a less all encompassing way of invading the mind on Ron. <em>She prob'ly didn't see anything I wouldn't tell her.</em></p><p>According to the Ravenclaw, there had been nothing about Voldemort or any of his followers, meaning he almost certainly did not want to join them. There was still a tiny chance, and it was better not to act absolutely certain that they knew he was loyal, because sooner or later he would put together how they got that information. It would be a death sentence for any kind of trust their group had, though perhaps it was already dead. He trusted Luna more than either of the others because he had known her at least in passing since he was a child and... aspects of her and the way her mind worked reminded him of Hermione. He could hardly help trusting some people more than others; some people had done more to earn his trust, and some people, like his brothers, were just lucky that way.</p><p>He heard a sound coming from the other room, where they were keeping Macmillan; it sounded like Apparation. <em>He can't have- not in such a short time- </em>Apparating himself just to get there more quickly, time seemed to slow down as he traveled instantaneously. <em>Could be someone's come to get him- but who could he have told about his location? </em>All at once he was there.</p><p>"Something wrong?" he asked, seeing nothing apparently wrong. It was unexpected that the wizard had his wand out, but not terribly concerning.</p><p>"Just... practicing spells, Ron." He squinted. "Are you quite all right? You seem a measure high-strung, unless I presume too much."</p><p>No response came immediately. He noticed he had his own wand out. He put it away.</p><p>"Just wondering what you were practicing. I reckon I am a bit high-strung. I need to get out more. Lucky there's something in the works." It was as if he thought that if he said enough, he could cover up the weirdness of the situation. There was a stack of newspapers next to where the Hufflepuff was lying.</p><p>"Lucky indeed. Given my condition, I've had naught to do but read old articles. Did you ever hear about the gift the Death Eaters supposedly offered the wizards of China?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Fa</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hermione was throwing everything she had brought to the school into an impossible space in her bag as Cho looked on with a confused expression.</p><p>"Why are you leaving? Why do you leave so late at night?"</p><p>"They're going today. I have absorbed all the details that I can, and now I must follow them."</p><p>"Who is going? Where do they go?"</p><p>"The Xian are going to London." When she had first heard it, the color had drained from her face. Mastery of 'spontaneous magic', or anything that did not rely on existing wards was relatively rare in China, but the Imperial Ministers needed something like a special forces unit for the punishment of unruly countries, which sounded like what was going on presently. Because of the prestige of the position and the insistence on only having twelve of them at a time, the standards could essentially be infinitely high, and with such a massive magical population, there would always be those who could fit the bill. The Xian were quite possibly the most dangerous wizards in the world, capable of summoning Jiangxi to absorb spells and riding on the backs of Chi. Advanced in age, they were perfectly confident in their abilities and drank small quantities of what was supposedly the Elixir of Life, but kept them kicking at any rate.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Well, the short version is that I don't know. If there's anything I understand about a massive world of magical politics, it's that ignorance is the rule, and knowledge is the exception. I can't imagine what sort of ax they have to grind against Crouch's government, because they can't be there to go after Death Eaters."</p><p>"What will you do?"</p><p>"I'll find out when I get there," she answered, finding herself channeling Ron. <em>I'm not entirely channeling him. I haven't decided that trying to undermine the Ministry by yourself is a better idea than going to school. </em>She nearly hit herself in the head. <em>And yet, here I am, leaving school now.</em></p><p>"Why are you going?"</p><p>That question had her thinking longer than any she had been asked in class in years. She knew that she had to do something, because in the last few days everything she heard about the Xian going to Magical Britain was in hushed voices, and in her mind it could only mean some terrible transpiring was about to visit her homeland. It was impossible for Hermione to try to run from the danger a second time. Going halfway around the world for an education, taking her parents and hiding them, and essentially trying to act as little like a wanted witch as possible seemed antithetical to what she promised herself when she came out of petrification years ago.</p><p>"I have to help Ron. I didn't know what he was doing before, and I don't know if he knew what he was doing, but that sort of thing never mattered-"</p><p>"Are you going back for him because-"</p><p>"I'd go back for Hannah or Terry if I could have helped them."</p><p>"Would you go back for me?"</p><p>"You're not in danger," she evaded. It was easier than having to think about it. She had everything packed up. "I need to know if you're coming with me." Cho shook her head.</p><p>"You do not know where you go." <em>That's right. She's defying Roger by even putting herself anywhere near me. </em>She rolled her eyes, facing away from her friend. <em>-the things we do for love.</em></p><p>"I'll be back, I hope, if they'll have me. If not, I'm leaving my notes here. There's some critical work that Terry and I have done, and if I die, someone needs to have them." This time the other witch nodded. Their roommates of sorts looked on, not understanding their conversation, but able to tell what was going on.</p><p>The moment they were teleported to the dining room, she set herself to the fireplace. Chinese homes did not traditionally have them, she knew, and the school hardly needed it to keep itself warm, but there had been an agreement with several other countries like the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia that there would be a controlled exchange of students, and connecting an international floo seemed like the easiest way of pleasing everyone. It was not a direct parallel to the alliances going on in the normal world, but wizards were not immune to changes in political philosophy. In her case, she would be going to an old embassy in Albania, from whence she could go straight to their embassy in London.</p><p>Getting into the fireplace, she felt more than a few sets of eyes on her as she cast the powder down, not bothering to guess what they were all thinking. Though the school seemed to disregard the notion of students having control over their lives, the one thing they could always do at any time, for any reason, was leave. Some time in the last ten years there was a decision that if students wanted to leave the school, it would clear space for more grateful students, and both parties would be better off. Where she landed, however, did not make her measurably better off.</p><p>Before she blinked the soot out of her eyes she could tell she had not gone far. There was a panel of wizards in ministerial robes sitting at a low table and as they looked at her she felt a barrage of mental attacks from all sides. There was no way for her Occlumency to hold; she could feel them going through her personal life, her plans for the immediate future, and her every hope and fear. Lóng-Laoshī was there, walking toward her as she doubled over, the circuits in her brain feeling like they were being overridden. Her hearing seemed to turn off momentarily, but it was back as soon as it left, and the deafening silence resumed. The instructor raised a hand and immediately she could tell the mental invasion had stopped.</p><p>She felt herself recovering as he walked over to her position, crouching down.</p><p>"抱歉," he said quietly, but audibly.</p><p><em>Why... </em>Reaching out with her bruised mind, the answer came almost immediately.</p><p><em>The Ministers of the school usually communicate with the mind arts. It is much quicker and there is virtually no risk of anyone being able to listen in on their conversation. </em>Hermione got the message that it was easy for people who communicated that way all the time to get used to it.</p><p>
  <em>Voldemort might be able... never mind. Why did you keep me from leaving?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am afraid your time with us is not quite done. We need you for the investigation.</em>
</p><p><em>What investigation? </em>It was unnecessary, she knew, but the confusion could be seen in her face. She was not sure why sending all the Xian to London was being labeled as an investigation, nor could she say what they were investigating.</p><p>
  <em>Perhaps you should join us.</em>
</p><p>She rose unsteadily and joined them at the low table, the wizards around it eyeing her with what could only be described as deep concern. Trying to pace and prepare herself, she entered the stream of consciousness. There were some objections to her being allowed into the discussion, since secrets of school and state would be available to her, but the instructor described her as a respectful witch who knew better than to mess with things that were none of her business. One of the older wizards asked the others to refrain from digging into her personal secrets, but she told them it was fine for them to look at whatever she had not shielded, since she was basically naked before them anyway, and they could get through her Occlumency if they felt like it.</p><p>Hermione revealed basically everything she knew about the Death Eaters, and it seemed the ministers were taking what she had in her head at face value. She was aware of all sorts of tricks to change people's memories, though she knew not how to perform them herself, and perhaps that explained it, though she still could have had her head muddled by someone more talented with those charms. At some point the Ravenclaw noticed she was still gripping her wand, which she decided to keep in her hand. It was not as if she could surprise anyone anyway. There were most likely wards that could kill everyone in the room.</p><p>The Ministers seemed interested by her perspective, but also slightly annoyed at the limitations to her memory and experience. She could practically feel them thumbing through the first few interesting bits in her life as if that would tell them why Voldemort chose 1991 to try to return to life. It made sense to her that such a thing would interest them. <em>If I may, Voldemort seemed interested in the research of Ekriz-dis, an ancient dark wizard who managed to briefly put his soul back into his remains. I am unsure how he tied his soul to the world of the living, since he was not manifested as a ghost, but that is the only instance of which I am aware that a wizard managed to accomplish anything similar.</em></p><p>It was a legitimate point to raise, and one that had not occurred to her until recently. The unknown manner in which the dark wizard managed to return from the dead was one that concerned her, and one that fascinated her if she were being honest with herself. It was the kind of thing that seemed perfectly impossible to achieve except with dark magic, but she was willing to use it if the reward outweighed the cost. She had discussed the matter with Terry one time.</p><p>"Hermione, it's really beyond doubt that the magic will have an effect on you. Most likely, it will become addictive in the sense that it degrades your usual resistance to it. A witch or wizard who normally finds it difficult to summon the hatred for a certain dark curse out of a belief that all people are worth of love could start to forget ever having that belief. Someone who needs to put pure lust into a spell, but has trouble because he or she is married, would probably find himself or herself closer to a divorce."</p><p>"That's possible," she remembered responding. "Nothing that I've read contradicts that. There's a competing theory, however, written by a known practitioner that these things you value will simply have to have less value than your ability to cast the spells, and you will gradually discover that as you continue to cast them. The author posits this as an explanation as to why some people avoid dark magic; they simply value what they would lose too highly. He describes the most likely case for using dark magic as a young wizard, down on his luck, desperate, or 'dead set' on some unusual goal, or some combination thereof."</p><p>Returning to the present, it seemed the discussion was more or less concluded. The Ministers of the school were masters of Fa, and the standards clearly indicated that the investigation into the nature of Voldemort's resurrection was a high priority, and the full force of the Xian would be there only to ensure that they were not disturbed in this endeavor. They understood that Britain was a war zone, and from her memories they were getting a better and better idea of how despotic the government was, despite making claims to the contrary and lacking in the ideals that they believed to motivate their system. The wizards seated with her seemed disgusted at the treatment of children by agents of the Ministry, and she almost felt compelled to defend them in some sense, to say that the Inspectors were well-meaning, but Ebony at least seemed to only be motivated by vengeance and the sense of self-righteousness required to destroy competing ideologies to the last book and quill, the enemy down to the last child, and whatever else was getting in the way.</p><p>The discussion needed to be elevated to the Imperial Ministers to have their permission to conduct an investigation in a foreign country with the Xian there to protect any students assisting in research. Hermione took it to mean that they would not be explicitly mentioning that she was going to be accompanying them. <em>Does the government have the same relationship with the school that the instructors have with the students?</em></p><p><em>How do you mean? </em>It was the mental voice of Lóng-Laoshī answering a question that perhaps he knew she did not realize she 'said out loud'.</p><p>
  <em>Ah. Well, Professor, it only seems like the students are allowed to break minor rules if they get away with it. Getting away with it, I suppose, would mean that no one was harmed in the process.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That is true. It is also our goal that there would be a reward for the clever students.</em>
</p><p>Somehow she kept her response of 'meritocratic indeed' from her surface thoughts.</p><p>The Ravenclaw could wonder why she was being brought with them, but she doubted she had a choice in the matter, she was going before they required it, and she would find out soon enough. The Xian were summoned shortly after the message was sent, and she found them a bit more whimsical than expected. They were less thin than the ministers of the school, most of them had long pipes, and they all wore amused, contented expressions. She could only guess at how long each of them had been alive, even with some finite quantity of the Elixir of Life one of them picked up on her question.</p><p>
  <em>Ah, regarding the old Flamel, you knew him too? If only every day were this interesting.</em>
</p><p><em>I had a conversation with him once, years ago. </em>She remembered everything- the way he died, what he revealed about himself and Dumbledore, and the terrible secret of the Philosopher's Stone, the reason he never made another. Because he preferred the quiet life, it did not occur to her that he had other friends, anywhere in the world. The kindly old wizard staring at her seemed to respond to what she was thinking.</p><p><em>I see. In your nineteenth century, he was quite active in his study of magic and alchemy. </em>Some pointless bit of trivia reminded her that the Chinese kept their own calendar with their own years. <em>There were times when he needed favors from us, and he was quite willing to trade. </em>Hermione needed no access to anyone else's mind to guess what kind of favors the old alchemist would have requested. Being honest with herself, it still felt weird to just look, even when everyone else was doing it. Not only did she value other people's privacy as much as her own, keeping her eyes on her own work was something she had trained into herself since she was a child.</p><p>In a matter of seconds one of the Xian drew a ward on the floor with the oldest Chinese runes she had ever seen, waving to the rest of them to accompany him. It appeared the teacher of Shu would be coming along, perhaps to mind her, perhaps to represent the school. Standing within the quickly constructed ward, the idea of it seemed to hammer in her earlier notion that warding was simply written magic, capable of all the same feats as verbal magic, but relying less on timing and the knowledge and skill of the user, enabling even children to stand on the shoulders of giants.</p><p>Given more time with the school ministers, she might have asked them why classes were not presented using the mind arts, since it seemed faster and harder to misunderstand, but she figured there was some reason and there were more pressing concerns. <em>Ron once said his entire life was a story of constantly refocusing to more pressing concerns.</em></p><p>All at once, they were on the island where Azkaban once stood. Hermione gathered that they had initially intended to go to London, but the plan changed with the details she had been able to provide. As if ignoring the ruin around them entirely, the Xian were quite interested in the runes and symbols carved into the circular floor of the prison. <em>That must have been how Ekrizdis managed to activate his mechanism of returning to life. </em>A quick scan of them revealed consistent references to the wolf and the lunar cycle, both in symbolism and in the more primitive method of ramming wolves' teeth into the ground, with some sort of anti-decomposition charm applied to them. <em>Charms are more or less permanent, even after thousands of years if nothing cancels the charm. </em>She had a sudden flashback to Professor Flitwick teaching them how to cancel the light charm before teaching them how to cast it.</p><p>Lóng-Laoshī seemed about as lost as she was when the very old wizards examined the work of an ancient wizard, so he addressed one of the many concerns running about in her mind. <em>Regarding the reason we do not teach using the mind arts, it would be a clunky, slow process were we to introduce it to those who did not know how to shield their thoughts. We would have to teach all students how to occlude, and then they would present a greater challenge when an instructor had a disciplinary matter to address. It is better that only those truly concerned with it learn the mind arts.</em></p><p><em>There are people who don't mind their thoughts being read? </em>She knew the answer already.</p><p>
  <em>Many of them go to classes with you. Many do not seem inclined to learn any magic, and that is well enough for us. What need do we have of them, after all?</em>
</p><p>The idea reminded her of a theory Terry was explaining to Hannah one time about an alternative explanation for the relatively low population of the wizarding world. It was only low of course, to someone raised in the normal world, and one explanation was that magic made things so easy there was low demand for labor. A handful of apothecaries in all of Britain could easily supply the island with her needs for potions at the prices she was willing to pay. It seemed like a less frightening explanation than what the blood purists posed, but there were no experiments directly proving it and frightening explanations needed to at least be taken into account.</p><p>The Xian had reached their conclusion. She could not quite tell what spell-forms they were creating, but she could have sworn she heard the Cantonese language once or twice. Her Shu instructor appeared to understand better than she did what they were saying to each other, since they were talking audibly now. <em>That must be their preference; they were just willing to go along with the school ministers when we were there.</em></p><p>
  <em>Regarding the wards and spell-forms on the floor-</em>
</p><p><em>They're an activation mechanism, aren't they? </em>she asked, realizing she was cutting him off. <em>On the night that Ekrizdis managed to temporarily come back from the dead, it was a full moon- but it couldn't just be any full moon, because he would have come back a long time ago. There had to be something that required human input.</em></p><p><em>Why would he return then? </em>It appeared Lóng-Laoshī was willing to let her run with it, and he was most likely right, since some second or third hand insight into the character of the dark wizard would better explain his decisions and his magic than a blind guess. It was an interesting question, though.</p><p><em>Well, when he came back, all that was found of him was a skeleton, so the Ministry didn't know whose it was- or they weren't saying- but it couldn't have been anyone else, because no one else would have been lying there decomposing.</em> She gestured in the direction of the graveyard with her wand. <em>They keep soulless bodies over there. Anyway, he knew his return would be temporary, since he couldn't rely on any proper body being there waiting for him.</em> She could feel her mind being watched. <em>If he wanted to come back when someone else had need of him, he could have foreseen a kindred spirit in Voldemort or someone like him, someone who would appreciate his genius and ambition.</em></p><p><em>The Xian believe that he attached his soul to the moon, that it would return when the ritual ward was activated. </em>Hermione nodded.</p><p>
  <em>Until then, he would have been watching the world... he would have been conscious this entire time; the soul can neither wake nor sleep.</em>
</p><p>It seemed everyone around was pondering the same thing; a near eternity of staring at the world from the moon, a dark wizard himself bound to remain alive and waiting for all time and seeing everything that came to pass. In some ways he put the Xian themselves to shame; he was older and had seen more- if nothing else he beat them pounds to pennies in determination. She heard the question of who could have defeated such a wizard before it was asked audibly, giving her a moment longer to translate it and respond.</p><p>"谁能打败他？"</p><p>"阿不思･邓布利多."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Attempt Number One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The potions went down easier than expected. Hannah was close to a full moon, and if she had seen the sky in months she might have been able to feel it coming, but to her every day and every night had been the same; perhaps she was the only one keeping track of time in the whole school. They had no holidays, for security reasons, so it hardly mattered, but more than once she had overheard a disagreement about what day it was, with the only way of measuring being the most recent edition of the <em>Prophet. </em>She had waited until the sunset of the day the potions were ready, leaving her with one of the hardest decisions yet.</p><p>She had to escape her dorm room, and from the beginning she was going to have to do something to get past Leanne. There were charms that essentially canceled the effectiveness of the muffling charm, since every sound in the rooms had to be monitored, and the witch was a light sleeper. To make matters worse, she slept under shield charms, meaning stunners and body-binds would have no effect except to wake the self-appointed sentry. It was a circumstance where she was willing to consider using a killing curse, but any kind of dark magic would set off the wards and she would be dead herself inside a minute. <em>I'm not even meant to use any kind of combative spell- I could levitate Draught of Living Death into her face if I managed to break her shield, but my that would definitely set off the wards on my wand. </em>There was some discussion about warding against the use of shield charms, to keep students from being able to resist arrest if they were caught 'defending blood purism', whatever that meant at this point.</p><p>Instead she had settled on telling Leanne she had a new boyfriend, and was inviting him over whether she was in the room or not, and the witch left with a scrunch of her nose. With her out of the room for the evening, likely saving her questions for after the fact, Hannah could leave as soon as all the magical lights went out, signaling the time to sleep. Under normal circumstances students would not pass out right as it became dark, but the beds were charmed for 'improved sleep', though she had no idea what the school's intention with that was. <em>I imagine she's gone off to find a friend to share a room for the evening, but she would return after she presumed that the bloke and I would be asleep. Generally, we are not meant to mix the sleeping arrangements around, but a few hours here and there is not considered a high priority. There was a reason that they were only listening for sounds, after all.</em></p><p>She doubted that all or even terribly many of the students were spending nights or parts of nights together, but without Quidditch or enemies, except imaginary traitors, boredom among a bunch of teenagers was decidedly an epidemic. With everything that had been taken out of the curriculum, there was even less to study for the academic types, and they found themselves passing time in one of the few ways that remained to them, or rather deliberately left to them by their benevolent overlords.</p><p>Walking through the hallways in the dark, she wished she knew how to disillusion herself, but she would have to rely on the invisibility potion Slughorn had made, which fortunately smelled just like the one Hermione made a few years ago. <em>Did I end up breaking that one? That's right, it got all over my robes and I had to smell like that. </em>Drinking the potions, she made her way out of the dormitory hallway through the solitary exit. She could assume that it existed to create a bottleneck in the event of an invasion or a mass-escape attempt, but the way was blocked by only a locking charm, since there was a ward to notify someone when a student passed through.</p><p>"Can't be anyone out here-" a voice came from down the hallway just as she closed the door behind her. She felt an unnecessary urge to hide herself. <em>Well, even if I am invisible, they could still bump into me.</em></p><p>"That's what they want you to think. We have to be on guard." It was a pair of student enforcers.</p><p>"If blood purists haven't tried to murder us in our beds yet, they won't start now. We should be focusing on the literature-"</p><p>"That's a position they would support," the other one said, pointing his wand at the first enforcer.</p><p>"They would if they were here- we've gotten everyone." Hannah managed to slip past them while they were distracted, cursing herself for leaving the door unlocked. In a matter of minutes, they were going to figure out someone was out of bed.</p><p>"That's something a blood purist would definitely say."</p><p>Rather than listen to more of the conversation, she kept moving. Having come up with a charm to make her footsteps silent, she could cover ground at a reasonable pace, but there was not a great distance to travel. Pressing against a nearby wall to avoid a passing Ministry official, she found the staircase to the solitary exit to the school, presumably for the same purpose as the other bottlenecks in the design. One question persisted in her mind.</p><p>
  <em>Where the hell is Slughorn?</em>
</p><p>The blonde witch could not be sure she needed his help to escape, but he was meant to provide her with a wolfsbane potion, which would keep the wardens from realizing the werewolf had left the building. There was another hurdle in the sense that he had not told her what the plan was for after she left the school and was in the Ministry proper, where she would be in greater danger of running into someone than before. Ron had regaled her of a time he got in and out of the place with Dean, but that was the Department of Mysteries, and a couple of potions and charms would not be sufficient to get there without being noticed.</p><p>It was her understanding that there were either jinxes or wards blocking Apparation, the portkey-creation spell was controlled, and if an invisible witch went through the Floo Network, there would be Hit Wizards after her inside of a minute. Her eyes widened as she found the Potions professor passed out on the floor.</p><p>"Shit," she said, casting a reviving charm. It appeared to have no effect. <em>What could have knocked him out? </em>Her worst fear was that it was an enforcer or an actual security wizard, but in either case she had no guide to get through the building except her tenuous memories of second-hand accounts. She caught sight of an empty potion bottle, wondering if that was something he had intended to give her. <em>Wait a minute- </em>The moment she recognized the smell she knew she had to leave without him, cursing him under her breath.</p><p>Breaking her way through the door with canceling charms and unlocking charms, she was almost certain someone in the school had been notified of her escape. <em>Let's give them a real problem to fix. </em>Casting an explosion charm on the door frame as she went through it, she noticed no immediate change, but as she casted a few more, the building... lurched, all manners of fizzing, banging, burning sounds coming from within and all around; on a more physical level the hallway she had just left started to seem like it was flying away from her and shrinking at the same time. Hannah knew she could not just keep staring at the effects of a few spells she had cast, but it was well and truly like watching a train wreck.</p><p>Hearing shouting, she ran, noticing her invisibility was wearing off already. Sprinting through the crowd, she did not fight the panicked expression forming on her face, realizing that for most of the people who did not know her, she could pass as a victim of the calamity running scared. Looking over her shoulder, no one was screaming about what happened; but rather staring in stunned silence. She made it to an elevator and tossed her wand inside, levitating it wandlessly and using it to cast a stunner before retrieving it and getting into a different elevator and acting like she was in the proper place.</p><p>If her understanding of her wards and the wards on her wand was close enough to the truth, they would know within seconds that she had gotten into an elevator, but there was no dimension of altitude on the Trace; there was no way to tell which floor in the building had seen her cast a stunning jinx. Something Ron had told her about levitating wands and being able to cast spells out of them had led her to practicing wandless levitation in the event that it became relevant, and the myriad possible ways it could become relevant had not left her alone the past few days. In a worst-case-scenario, she was willing to abandon her wand, since she could use it to throw pursuers off her trail, but getting a new one would be challenging.</p><p>From what little she knew of the outside world, she would have to get out of the country to get a new wand, and she knew that only from Crouch's Ministry encouraging other magical governments to join in their initiative Umbridge started with the Edict. Hannah wondered if there was a term for 'rolling over in her grave, but in a good way'. Accidentally killing her was probably the only serious blow the group ever dealt to the current regime, and she could not think of anything the Death Eaters did that equaled that. <em>Well, they have their own objectives. I need to focus on the task at hand.</em></p><p>The elevator opened with a ding. Getting out without preamble, she walked across the atrium, passing under a bizarre gold statue. <em>That has to be real gold, right? I know I read somewhere that you can't just transfigure gold. </em>Her best bet was the normal street exit, which she was able to infer was a loo, since there was a wizard walking out.</p><p>"What are you doing here, Miss?"</p><p>"I was just in the school when everything- I don't know, it became totally distorted for some reason. I made it out of there alive, but I don't know if anyone else did. Professor Eiger asked me to wait here for his Department Head to arrive."</p><p>"Did 'e now?" He looked her up and down. "I know just the witch, Irma Johnson, she should be able to help you out with that."</p><p>"Thank you, sir." She waited for him to pass and jumped into the loo after him. There were none of the odor-erasing charms she expected, meaning her suspicions about the way out of the building were justified. Standing on the bowl and pulling the large chain, she felt herself spiraling until she was dumped out into a phone booth of all things, rather like a portkey. <em>I can keep my wand for the time being, but I can't let anyone see it, so if I get stopped by anyone, I'll have to run for it. </em>Her mind still working quickly, she felt one of the potions wearing off, unable to isolate the sensation as she walked the street. In the normal side of London, the Hit Wizards would have a harder time catching her, since they could not rely on any magical means of apprehending her. If they approached her, she could scream and run for it. Though it was unlikely anyone would jump in for her sake, they would at least allow her to pass through the crowd, while making no special effort for her pursuers. It was one of the ways to suit one's emotional desires without 'getting involved'.</p><p>Trying to come up with something in the way of a place to go, her ideal was to reunite with Ron and Hermione, but she had no idea where they were. Going to Hogsmeade would put her where they had been once, but she had no way of telling them she had gone there. <em>Where can I go until then? I can't go home, because they would look for me there, and that's in Sheffield.</em> Figuring out how to leave the city without being noticed would be challenging to say the least. She had no desire to go to Diagon Alley, where there were people who would be more likely to recognize her, but she could use no magical means to hide herself outside the magical world. <em>Even with a clean wand, I'm still a minor, so the Improper Use of Magic Office would know about any instances of magic because of the Trace. Maybe they would not immediately know that I was the one who cast it, and maybe with all that's going on, they would be inclined to ignore it, but if they know of a minor on the loose in London, someone will be clever enough to connect the dots.</em></p><p>She went into a clothes store for lack of a better idea, wishing she had thought to cut wards into her hand ahead of time. Even a few extra potions would enable her to get around unnoticed, but she had hoped that Slughorn would have taken her somewhere by Side-Along Apparation. <em>That was before he drank the Draught of Living Death, of course.</em></p><p>The solution to the problem that she had seen popped into her head too quickly to be believed, but she decided to trust her instincts in absence of anything else. He had brewed the draught not so he could harmlessly disable any sentries who might hinder their escape, but so he could make it look like she had stolen his potions. Putting himself into a deathlike state would probably require a trip to Saint Mungo's to get him back up, since there was no one around with the expertise to brew an antidote. It was easy for her to picture him hiding or getting rid of his usual supply of remedies so that even senior students who could identify them would not be able to help him out of his predicament. Once in the hospital, he knew enough to prolong his stay, perhaps by poisoning himself or refraining from taking his treatment properly. It would work until the Ministry decided it would wait no longer to have its Potions instructor back, but cowards were quite willing to prolong the inevitable.</p><p><em>Well, it's unreasonable to expect anything better. People basically have a right to be cowardly, if the alternative is dying for someone else.</em> More to the point, she doubted her gambit with the stunning spell in the elevator would delay the average Ministry official for long, or the above average official for more than a minute. Trapped in the building, there was nowhere for a fugitive to go but out to the street, and then she would have to find some place to hide. Hannah briefly entertained the childish notion of jumping into one of the clothing racks like she did to annoy her mother years and years ago.</p><p>This time, however, she overheard a group of girls her age going through the racks. One of them looked over at her robes and squinted. <em>Should I stun them? No, I don't know the memory charm, so there would be no point. </em>It had been a while since she walked around through the normal world, and she had honestly forgotten that she was wearing robes, the uniform for the state school.</p><p>"Where did you get that?" one of the girls asked. She was wearing high-waisted jeans, a shirt cut around the midsection, and a men's flannel over that, but not buttoned or on her shoulders. Hannah squinted back. <em>Huh. I suppose that is the style these days. </em>One of the others was wearing a denim jacket and a flannel around her jean-skirted waist. <em>I can't say I get that one either. </em>The third girl looked like that German style of painting with the colored rectangles and black borders. She started to appreciate the idea of wizarding fashion generally staying put, though she was sure there were these types of young women somewhere.</p><p>"I go to a boarding school, so this is our uniform. They're quite traditional." An idea popped into her head. "Where are you headed?" she asked, seeing one of them move her bag to her shoulder.</p><p>"Oh, we were going to get on the midnight to Hampstead. Properly, we're supposed to be back already, but at this rate we might take a cab." The witch assumed they were friends living together in a rented house with little to no supervision. <em>Must be nice. </em>She grabbed a couple articles of clothing off the rack and said she would only be a moment, ducking into a changing room. True to her word, she put on a black top with white striped sleeves, black leggings, a denim skirt, boots, a belt, and a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off.</p><p>The girls were talking about something else as she came out, though they used the phrase 'the local talent' to refer to the boys in the area, which was not an expression she had heard before. In fairness, she had been hanging out with Ron and Hermione since second year, so there was not a lot of 'girl talk' except with Susan. <em>I hope she's all right... she was always good at blending in.</em></p><p>"That's a whole look," someone commented, seeing the clothes she had stolen.</p><p>"The manager has been sleeping around with my mother," she lied. "I like to demonstrate that two can play at the game of looking the other way." In reality she doubted anyone would notice the fact that she had gone in with a different outfit, because no one would assume it was the same girl leaving as had come in. <em>Most girls also don't strip down to their knickers just to steal clothes either.</em> The other girls had only been browsing, but seemed to admire her devious streak.</p><p>"Scuffer over there," one pointed out, not looking at the policeman she indicated. Hannah saw no particular reason for additional caution, since it was hardly their responsibility to scan girls as they left to see if they had stolen anything. At the same time, the guilt was starting to weigh on her, since it was not as if the clothing chain had ever done anything to her. <em>I'll pay them back later.</em></p><p>"Say, what have you got for lads at the boarding school?" one of them asked as they waited for a cab.</p><p>"Wankers," she muttered, thinking of the Ministry school. "The good ones are back home." She found she was stepping right into the slang, which took on a different tone than it had in Hogwarts. It was possible that it merely represented another way the wizarding world was more stagnant, but Hannah was no linguist herself.</p><p>"Oh?" It was an invitation to talk more about her home, but she responded with only another raised eyebrow. As they boarded the cab, one getting up front and three squeezing into the back, she saw the first breast in her life that did not belong to her, but rather the girl who said 'Hampstead', catching the attention of the driver. One of the others giggled nervously. The witch only rolled her eyes, looking out the window the rest of the way.</p><p>The drive took only fifteen minutes, as late as it was, and somewhere along the way she learned the generous girl was called 'Jackie'. She made sure to laugh at some of the jokes being told in the car. When they got out, there was a unanimous agreement that it would be Jackie who would have to respond to it when the cabbie extended a hand for the fare, having not accepted the substitute. <em>He would have a hard time feeding his family with it.</em></p><p>"Maybe on the twelfth attempt, you'll get one who doesn't turn out to be a poof," Hannah joked, amusing the other two more than their friend.</p><p>"Yeah, or a paki."</p><p>"I can hardly breathe for laughing," Jackie moaned. "Get inside, you three. Yes, you, I'll come up with some way of getting back at you soon."</p><p>"My name's Hannah and I kind of fell in love with this boy I haven't seen in months. I'm sure you'll think of something." <em>It's nice of them to let me stay over this late at night.</em> She supposed they were the type to do things on a whim because they might be fun.<em> Lucky me. I almost forgot I still have a magical government on my arse.</em></p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Grindelwald</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The visit from Blaise had been interesting, but ultimately quite short.</p><p>He admitted that the real reason he had fled Hogwarts was because his mother had found herself interested in a dark wizard from back home, in northern Africa. He had wished to flee combat, describing himself as more of a lover than a duelist, but could still be persuaded to run the occasional errand. In this case, he was assisting with the stakeout outside the prison, delivering a shrunken crate of food, and sharing information with them, after which he would report to Snape, one of the closer Death Eaters to their position. Their old Potions master had spoken at a conference with academics from various places in the Visegard States, encouraging them to support the Dark Lord, only under whose rule can the dream of the dark arts ever be realized.</p><p>Zabini asked what had become of Evan, though he seemed personally disinterested in the question.</p><p>"Evan has amassed his own following at Durmstrang by virtue of his great works of dark magic under the tutelage of the Lord Voldemort. He impresses us more with the passing hour." Goyle looked on with a confused expression, but Draco reached out to him with Legilimency. <em>Anything being passed to Snape or any other Death Eater should be sanitized. Only what they expect us to believe may we let slip.</em></p><p>"I see. The last Headmaster rather expected you to take him under your wing, but it appears he has wings of his own, like the winged serpents of the Yucatan."</p><p>According to their old friend, the countries that had been infiltrated by servants of the Dark Lord were also under international pressure to move to a more authoritarian regime to get rid of blood purism. With Britain already having been lost, it was easy to see why the world perceived Crouch and his supporters as the victors. <em>We were saying for decades that our home would be the battleground, the tipping point, and even with the point well and truly tipped, our master will not permit us to reclaim it.</em> Yaxley had rather lost his composure by arguing until he was blue that no amount of their own lives was worth losing Britain, because the entire world would follow, and it appeared with increasing, frightening certainty that his prediction was correct. Already his father, according to Zabini, was facing mounting discontent in France, and it always had been a country inclined to revolution.</p><p>For some reason, the Lord Voldemort had yet to provide the men of the Mark with any orders other than the ones he had given.</p><p>Questioning the wisdom of his lord for the first time in years was possible in Austria, far from his mental control, but it still had its time and place. Freeing Grindelwald was not an opportunity to be passed up lightly, and if Snape or any other Death Eater had seen fit to tell them to defy the Dark Lord, they would have passed the message on. As it was, the incentives remained the same.</p><p>With Zabini gone, the plan was in motion.</p><p>Goyle, who had gone in before, would go in again. It was better that the limited prison staff from the nearest magical government saw as few of them as possible, and two Durmstrang students of the same age would be more suspicious than the same one coming twice. The Beaters were in the sky, where he could safely reach them with the mind arts, and with a little luck they would tell him everything he needed to know, but there was a limit to how much they could see in a half moon. The main force of the invasion, he and Nott would be removing wards and tunneling into the compound. From what his henchman had said on the last visit, the central tower had no sentries on the inside, and it was entirely cut off from any kind of light, sound, or change in temperature. Getting there underground would require the same skill in ward removal, but put them in the way of fewer guards. Derrick and Bole had their course memorized and the responsibility of monitoring the positions of the guards with the human revealing charm, relaying it to them whenever a sentry neared their position.</p><p>"The wards should be just as effective on the floor of the prison," Nott reiterated. Draco answered with only a look. Above them, Goyle was almost certainly asking the staff all sorts of questions about the prison and how the solitary prisoner was secured, the kind of thing he would be asking if he were doing a project, though if they suspected him at all, they most likely suspected he was planning a break-in for the future. His memory had been carefully modified after each time they changed the plan; apparently there had been a Russian book on the subject.</p><p>"<em>Vermiculous,</em>" incanted the Malfoy heir, turning another mass of earth into worms. It would be slow going for excavation, but his partner was scaring them forward with a flame in a bottle, reducing the amount he had to transfigure. There were charms that could keep objects from being transfigured, he knew, but it was more likely that the brilliant dark wizard had invented a much simpler defense or set of defenses. He wished he could have brought the witches along, but Bulstrode was studying and gathering intelligence, and he hardly wanted Davis to leave Evan's side, lest he develop a sense of suspicion. Draco sighed internally. <em>I did wonder why she insisted on using the color change charm on my hair. I never did like it in black.</em></p><p>"Above us rests the first stone," Nott muttered, indicating a piece of masonry. He cast some kind of charm revealing spell on it, but only shook his head.</p><p>"Deeper yet lies the center." He transfigured another mass of earth, harboring a suspicion that there had to be some kind of general case theory for the subject, and that Uagadou had yet to share it with the greater magical world. <em>If we fall it will be for lack of unity. Petty differences like culture and old conflicts will be used against us until the side fighting for muggle supremacy is half wizard.</em></p><p>When at last the pattern of the stone had changed, there was a circle of black masonry, lighting up briefly as they passed under it. <em>Human detection ward- would have been placed after the imprisonment. </em>Draco scowled as his partner waved his wand at the circle, seeing no response.</p><p>"With each trial, another charm, and with each charm, another void of magic it reveals. Is there truly no shielding in place?" He attempted to move the stones, but they did not budge. Draco remembered a report that Derrick and Bole had made after scouting the place out the first time. <em>There were the standard anti-apparation jinxes applied outside the prison, as well as warding Dumbledore most likely borrowed from Hogwarts specifically, but they noticed their broomsticks were slower about a hundred years away from the castle in any direction. Upon review, we determined there was some charm in place to prevent displacement or possibly movement. </em>He took out his own wand and tried to reveal charms, dark magic, jinxes... <em>and we may well be in the epicenter of that.</em></p><p>"I fear Grindelwald predicted undermining, Nott. Whatever magical defense he used emanates from the center of this very circle." The other Slytherin nodded as he spoke.</p><p>"Suspicion holds he invented a field that canceled all magic. No reason to believe it existed until now." The scion of House Malfoy attempted to envision how the design of the prison would make use of such a field, but he shook his head at the idea. <em>I should start from the beginning. The architect intended to keep wizards in here, meaning some method to prevent magical escape must exist, otherwise prisoners would eventually disapparate wandlessly. He seemed to put some amount of ironic symbolism into the design, so a kind of field that canceled all magic would be tenable, in the sense that his opponents would be imprisoned in their own paradise, a microcosm of the Vienna he knew as a boy. Unable to use magic, not because they were incapable themselves, but kept in check by an outside force-</em></p><p>A thought interrupted his thinking. Reason dictated that it was Bole.</p><p>
  <em>There are a couple guards getting close to the central tower. No idea why they're there.</em>
</p><p><em>Do they appear to respond to any kind of sign or warning? </em>Draco knew of a few mechanisms to alert the warden without alerting the invaders; but it seemed magical governments in general would rather scare them away than let them get close enough to be caught.</p><p>
  <em>They're just walking in your direction. Don't seem hurried. I'll let you know if they turn around.</em>
</p><p>Returning to his work, he revealed his suspicion to Nott that the magical defense was structured to keep the elements of the prison from being moved, while preventing any magic from taking place within the tower. He had absolutely no idea how an anti-magic field could work, but did not share this with his companion, for if anyone could figure it out, it would be Grindelwald or the Dark Lord, and Nott would get it a few minutes later.</p><p>"<em>Serpensortia," </em>Draco incanted quietly. He reached out to the animal with Legilimency, doubting he would ever have Evan's control over it. "It's on the inside," he whispered, keeping his wand on it. The field that prevented magic had to prevent it coming from the inside, but if it prevented it coming from the outside, the charm or warding that prevented displacement would be ineffective; a sufficiently dedicated prisoner would eventually wear down the mortar between the stones and push them out.</p><p>"What do you see?" the other Slytherin asked quietly.</p><p>"The snake describes the same gate to the rest of the prison that Goyle described a few days ago." He suddenly wished for the ability to turn the animal into a portkey, but generally they were not meant to be capable of independent movement, and it was not an easy skill to pick up. Nott suggested getting a message to their ally above them that he should request to visit the prisoner, and whatever mechanism the guards use to open the gate, the snake could replicate to open it again, but Draco shook his head. His henchman had already told him that there was a key, and it rested on a desk in public view.</p><p>
  <em>Goyle. Stand directly in front of the key, then move- go somewhere else entirely and raise your shields. When no one is looking at it, briefly lower your shields.</em>
</p><p>It was a daring message, but the sentries had almost certainly already scanned the young wizard's brain. They would know that he had no orders, only a desire to find out more about the prison, and they would not leap to the conclusion that he was receiving his orders with the mind arts with no evidence to suggest such a thing. He had given his vassal some rudimentary training in Occlumency, but the idea was not to successfully keep the guards out, since that would only make them more suspicious.</p><p>"In a moment, I shall require you to go outside and signal to Derrick and Bole,"</p><p>Nott needed not respond in any audible way. Detecting a halt in movement from Goyle, he momentarily looked through his vassal's eyes to get an exact location of the key. Withdrawing from his mind, he waited for the shields to come back up, at which point he notified his partner. Casting the levitation charm without moving the key, he shifted his mental focus to the snake, preparing for a 'fast and loud' breakout in the event that their subtle approach did not work.</p><p>The previous day, he had gone over a host of different responses required of the Beaters depending on a signal from either him, Nott, or Goyle. A white light meant that they would need to get away. Red sparks would mean that they would need to fly low over the prison, and green sparks would mean that they would need to attack the sentries. They had learned a handful of dark curses in their classes at Durmstrang, and the staff would definitely not be expecting it, but it was a last resort by all measures. That course of action would force them into a 'fast and loud' approach, from which there would be no return. <em>Worse yet, it would invite immediate international attention.</em></p><p>Getting a return signal from Nott, he moved the key off the table. Goyle's shields were down, meaning no one should have noticed, but it was better to keep it out of sight for the moment. There was one more message to get out.</p><p>
  <em>Goyle. Your part is done. Leave.</em>
</p><p>Without responding, the wizard above him raised his shields, presumably to cut off the conversation and walk out. Reaching out to Nott, he expressed that Goyle was going to be their first suspect when they saw the key was missing, and they would chase him out. Without receiving a response, he had to trust his partner to aid in the evacuation, perhaps providing further distraction or covering his escape with levitated instant darkness powder. Focusing on the key, which he knew the snake could see, he levitated it from where it was hiding through the gate, into the anti-magic field, where he doubted the charm was having any further effect. Commanding the conjured animal to take the key upstairs; he was not taking too much of a leap in assuming that Grindelwald would take it and use it to escape. According to Goyle, who had heard it from the guards, the key worked for both the gate and each of the cells, but they might have been lying.</p><p>
  <em>Grindelwald.</em>
</p><p>For a moment he wondered if he had successfully made any mental connection with the dark wizard he presumed to be directly above him. He wondered if there was any requirement of having met the man before if unable to see him; he knew even the Dark Lord could not reach him where he was. The answer surprised him.</p><p>
  <em>Wer bist du? Qui es-tu?</em>
</p><p><em>Je suis Draco Malfoy, serviteur de Voldemort. </em>He wondered why the wizard was thinking in languages, since usually he could communicate with anyone without particular effort, but it was certain that he had learned Legilimency from a different teacher. <em>At least I know he's awake. Now I just need to see if-</em></p><p><em>Ah, you speak English as well. Perhaps you are well-traveled as I. Well met, servant of flight from death; it has been ages since anyone has visited.</em> Draco remembered both that the mental link afforded access to his surface thoughts as well as that his master had fashioned a French name for himself, but neither detail mattered. Time was of the essence.</p><p>
  <em>I have asked a conjured snake to bear a key to your cell, and I would know if the cell and the gate below had the same lock. You would have seen them use the same key both times when they led you in-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I designed the key myself, servant. It opens any lock in the world. What have you done with the guards?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We have distracted them. If you open the lower gate, can you-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Almost certainly, yes. You will see that it was not a mistake to rely on me, if indeed that was part of your plan.</em>
</p><p>Draco turned his focus to his vassals. He was getting no response from Nott, meaning he was dead or out of range. Derrick and Bole were still trying to distract the guards, but they seemed to have picked up on the fact that they were being distracted. He tried to signal to Goyle to get him to throw green sparks into the sky, but he was as unresponsive as Nott. <em>I can't have them die- not after Crabbe last year.</em></p><p>Using Legilimency to find the human guards in the prison, he cast an explosion charm through the part of the floor that was permeable to magic, causing two signals to go out immediately. Dueling and offensive magic had never been specialties of his, but he was aware that physical barriers did nothing to stop charms that did not travel from the caster to the target; it was an informal property of charms that there was rarely any flash or jet of spellfire, even the Patronus was something that was created rather than issuing forth from the wand, unless the caster had only a functional understanding of the theory.</p><p>He attacked a few more targets in the same way, assuming they would not realize from whence the attacks came, but the guards were at least ready for explosive charms. One of them might have been laying wards down on the floor, since he only heard an explosion once with every third incantation. <em>They will surround me before long.</em></p><p>
  <em>Not to worry, Draco Malfoy. Join me above. I have wanted to visit someone in my prison for many years.</em>
</p><p>Without thinking about it, he jogged out of his tunnel, still reaching out for his vassals. Grindelwald claimed to have the situation under control, but that did not mean they had not lost a man in the process. <em>With this successful operation, at the very least I should be able to replace some of them. My following will rival that of Evan.</em></p><p>The surface carried the destruction he had imagined. He signaled to the Beaters to see if they could find the other two anywhere. He had been correct in his assumption that the dark wizard they freed would be appropriately grateful and would help them to help him, though it was starting to seem like he would receive a reward. The front door to the prison had been blasted off its hinges and there were bodies all over the ground, though an aged wizard standing in the visitation room, waving his wand, was stacking them neatly.</p><p>"They were no match for you, then."</p><p>"No, it was immediately following one or two of your explosions that I opened the gate and summoned a wand from one of the bodies. As perhaps you expected, they sent a contingent after your friend, but I brought them back. He should realize they are no longer chasing them, but I would not be surprised if a young wizard kept running if it were his first real battle."</p><p>"We have seen some combat before," Draco said, grateful Goyle was most likely unharmed. It seemed the former prisoner had killed all of the guards in a matter of seconds, though he did have decades to plan his attack. Had it been the Dark Lord, there would have been substantially more torture involved, but a cursory inspection of the bodies revealed that they were killed quickly. Grindelwald appeared to have caused the key to fly around the room cutting holes through the heads of the guards. "Though, I confess, we have never seen combat like this."</p><p>"Ah. I hold nothing against them, really. Killing them was necessary for my escape, but no more could be gained by killing them slowly. I have allowed a few of them to run off." As he spoke, Derrick was practically kicking down the front door, dragging in an injured Goyle. His arm had nearly been cut off.</p><p>"Your confederate?" the dark wizard asked. He waved his wand, healing the wound. Draco looked at him with an expression of moderate surprise, not having guessed such an effective spell were possible. "Please, it is the very least I could do."</p><p>"Where's Bole?" the newly healed wizard asked, seeing Nott slink in.</p><p>"Dead," the other Beater answered. "Only so many times you can distract the guards before one of them hits you." He sighed. "I'll keep up with his network in Ireland; they mostly answer to Parkinson anyway."</p><p>"Alas, there is nothing I can do for that, servant," Grindelwald mused, perhaps still amused someone would identify himself as such. "Albus and I disagree on the subject, but there is truly no way to return from the grave; the dead are gone as though they were never here."</p><p>"Dumbledore's dead too," Goyle muttered.</p><p>"A pity. I had hoped he would drink the Elixir of Life after his friend Flamel managed to produce for us a substantial amount."</p><p>"Flamel's dead."</p><p>"Precisely who has been killing every great wizard in the world?" the dark wizard asked, crinkling his nose a little.</p><p>"Voldemort." It was Goyle again. "I think he wants you to threaten the continental governments. Can't figure out why."</p><p>Draco's face was devoid of expression once more. He foresaw several long explanations of every major development in the magical world for the last fifty years, but with a little luck, there would be something gained from the venture after all.</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Interlude: The Walking Statue</h2></a>
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      <p>Charlie woke up in a dark, dusty place, estimating from the ache in his back that he had been out for a while, possibly hours or days. The rustic had turned on them, and he was still annoyed about that, but he was not the threat. He could not see anything around him, and it was weird that he still had his wand, but not hearing any other voices in his mind meant that he had been taken out of the city. <em>We were more trouble than it was worth keeping us there. If either of us knew anything of the mind arts, we could've used it to our advantage. </em>He sighed. <em>I reckon they figured there were fewer variables wherever this is.</em></p>
      <p>Getting up, he could not detect Sirius anywhere, though his wand was where he left it, he thought. Remembering that Goldstein had hidden in an impossible space one time, he guessed that he could be trapped in one, though there was a simple way of finding that out. Casting a light charm and moving it up until he could no longer see it, he concluded he was either outside, or in an impossible space that was so voluminous on the inside that he might as well be.</p>
      <p>"Sirius?" he called out. There was no response. He had not paid attention in Charms well enough to remember how to expand a light charm, so he created new ones, moving them around in hopes he would see his companion somewhere. Starving, he figured the best thing to do was to grab him and regroup somewhere, counting his blessings to have woken up at all.</p>
      <p>"Put that light out, you damn mong; you'll give away our position." Recognizing the voice behind him, he hardly hesitated.</p>
      <p>"Where are we?"</p>
      <p>"I don't know. I already tried to disapparate." In darkness once more, Charlie felt alone, though their enemies had to be around somewhere. <em>They had to have a reason for not killing us.</em></p>
      <p>"We're near the city, then. Any idea about our targets?"</p>
      <p>Two bright blue lights flared in front of them and he instinctively threw up a shield charm, mistaking them for a pair of memory charms. The lights were moving toward them, but it was clear they were not spellfire.</p>
      <p>"The bloody hell is that?"</p>
      <p>"It's something that doesn't need light to see. <em>Avada Kedavra.</em>" The green flash unnerved him as it passed him by, going through his magical shield and right in between the two lights, both about seven feet off the ground. "Damn. <em>Lumos," </em>he incanted, moving the spell toward the threat. Slowly the charm illuminated the a monstrosity of molten gold, the lights serving as eyes as perhaps the older wizard had expected, if not for a statue. <em>Reckon he's also right in thinking it's not harmless.</em></p>
      <p>A voice came from nowhere.</p>
      <p>"A pity you had to wake up at night, but no matter. My father's master work took me years to even replicate, and another few months to improve, but the Death Eaters didn't take all of his notes, and they'll have to answer to me for that misstep."</p>
      <p>There was no point in answering, and serious doubt the young wizard could hear them. He was probably still in the city, with Regulus, where it would be almost impossible to get at them, and before that they would have to deal with the statue of metal as it moved toward them. Charlie cast an explosion charm at center mass, but all that did was expand a sphere of metal, which shrunk back down.</p>
      <p>"Ice! Know any ice spells?" he asked.</p>
      <p>"One," Sirius responded, a slashing motion of his wand causing a haze of light blue to move toward the target. Its eyes burned brighter and the metal started to glow, resisting being frozen. <em>If it's just a hunk of metal all the way through, how the hell does it respond to spells? </em>He had seen objects enchanted to dance around, but it was all pretty simple; there was no spell that could dynamically assess threats, because the incantation would be a mile long.</p>
      <p>"Does it work like a painting or something?" he asked, backing up.</p>
      <p>"I doubt it; that would give it something like a brain to attack. This was their worst case scenario in case they couldn't Imperius the whole city." The older wizard tried casting a memory charm, but if he knew it well enough, it failed to work as intended. "Doesn't it seem obvious, though, that the first thing you would try to do when a golem made of molten metal attacks you, is to freeze it?" he asked. The magical shields they were putting up only seemed to delay it; its liquid fists punched through them.</p>
      <p>"Well how could you set it up so that-"</p>
      <p>"There are two options. One, it's being controlled somehow, but then we could just block the spells and sever it from its master. We're dealing with an Automaton."</p>
      <p>Charlie gulped, realizing he no longer had his broom in his expanded bag. These things were not exactly magical creatures, but he had heard about them, since Talos was usually mentioned in the same breath as many of the other Ancient Greek monsters. He was relatively sure they mostly served to protect the kingdoms against dragons. <em>We definitely have to go after Goldstein, I just can't bring Sirius into the city.</em></p>
      <p>"What was wrong with you back there?" he asked, casting a beast detection charm to see if there was anything useful nearby. "It was like you just got overwhelmed by the voices everywhere." He was making an attempt to be sympathetic, but more than anything, they needed some way to get the advantage back from their targets, whose targets they had become.</p>
      <p>"I've already figured it out. Distract the golem," Sirius ordered, disappearing into the darkness. Despite himself, the younger wizard had hoped his traveling companion would have been willing to test out more of the dark magic he had been using. <em>There's got to be something they didn't think of... </em>Continuing to back up and cast shield charms, he had a thought to try transfiguring it, but he had hardly practiced that since McGonagall's class, and he was pretty sure there was some rule about transfiguring gold.</p>
      <p><em>Merlin's pants, how did they get all this gold in the first place? </em>He had some idea that the Black family was wealthy, but he had not known Regulus ever existed, so he must have been in hiding for a while. Raising trees out of the ground to slow down the automaton, he remembered learning of a massive withdrawal from the muggle bank the Goldstein family used, around the time the escaped Hogwarts students disappeared. <em>Damn it all, if only we still had Wahde.</em></p>
      <p>The golem was going through the conjured trees, setting them on fire in the process. Charlie had not interrogated his old partner on everything there was to know about the general case theory of Transfiguration that Uagadou kept as a closely guarded secret, but since there were not inordinate amounts of gold pouring out of Uganda, he doubted it was so simple. Conjuring birds and trying to get the automaton to focus on them instead, something that worked on hippogriffs sometimes, was proving completely ineffective. The mass of metal seemed indefatigable, while he knew he would run out of energy at some point, especially on an empty stomach.</p>
      <p>More creature detection charms resulted in more eerie silence in every direction, though he cast attraction jinxes all the same. <em>If something's out there, it'll be here before long. I'm not even hoping for much, just something that can get me out of here, like a griffin. A runespoor might distract it, but they're in unplottable forests.</em> One of the great automaton's fists landed right next to him, causing him to have to leap backward. He tried a levitation charm, hoping he could at least get it of the ground, but liquids were not meant to be levitated.</p>
      <p>Right as it seemed the monster of molten metal had caught up to him, he cast a severing charm on each of its arms, causing them to fall to the ground, then a shield charm he hoped it could not just punch to pieces. <em>If Sirius is right about the instructions, there could be wards in the hands... no idea how you ward a liquid. </em>The gambit managed to delay the statue for a moment, but as he put up more shields, the golem stepped on its own severed hands, new ones growing from the stumps right after. To his surprise, it started kicking through the next few shields.</p>
      <p>"The wards are on solids inside the liquid!" he called out in case his partner was listening. "Gold melts easy, it could be a diamond or something..." He had a thought to cut the feet off and then separate them from the body, because summoning the unknown ward surfaces was not working. "<em>Diffindo!" </em>he incanted, almost at the limit of his strength. The golem tripped and he banished the foot before it could re-form.</p>
      <p>Charlie's eyes widened as a new foot grew from where the old one had been. <em>It'll keep chasing me forever... but it has to be getting smaller.</em> Scrambling to his feet to get more distance, he cut off the other foot, banished it, and put up a shield charm at the last moment. Breathing at last as the golem beat against the magical barrier, he felt something poking him in the back. It was a wand.</p>
      <p>"You did well, Weasley. I'm actually quite impressed; I tried everything I could think to do to render this walking statue mortal, and yet it continued to pursue me. Goldstein and I have had weeks to perfect the design."</p>
      <p>"You used the... people of the Lost City, didn't you?"</p>
      <p>"Yes, there were able to think of quite a number of ways the golem could be defeated. It truly was a wonder, working with them to come up with the warding for the instructions, as he calls them. They have never seen a written language, and yet, with our minds, it was almost too easy for them. They perfected what his father had started in his early notes, and now we have a weapon no one can defeat. You were only just able to contain it, and I doubt you would have done as well against a million of them." The younger wizard felt the wand leave his back, but he was in no condition to fight. Any sudden movement would be met with a killing curse. <em>I need a breather. I need to keep him talking.</em></p>
      <p>"What do you intend... to do... with a million of them?" he asked.</p>
      <p>"Oh, nothing, just keep expanding our powers forever. At some point I realized Goldstein had the right of it. Even if all you want is to be left alone, other people don't leave you alone, or that is the the way he puts it."</p>
      <p>"He's a criminal. He kidnapped people and murdered them." <em>I shouldn't bother justifying why we're chasing them. </em>"You were a Death Eater."</p>
      <p>"That he well knows, and yet I left my master's service for the same reason he left Hogwarts, the same reason he hates the more loyal servants of the Dark Lord."</p>
      <p>"And what's that?" Charlie asked, his wand flying out of his hand. An old Seeker, he might have leaped for it, but he would have been killed immediately.</p>
      <p>"They don't care about us." Waving his wand, Regulus destroyed the shield, clearing the way for the mass of molten metal. "Please cooperate; we have yet to see the golem kill anyone."</p>
      <p>They both turned to the sound of a thump. It was the corpse of a boy, almost immediately recognizable as Goldstein. A stunner hit the former Death Eater in the back, and another shield charm blocked the automaton.</p>
      <p>"<em>Accio wands,</em>" Sirius incanted, surfacing from the darkness and tossing one to his confederate.</p>
      <p>"You- how did you-"</p>
      <p>"I should start by explaining what they expected to happen, and why that did not happen." The older wizard put conjured chains around his brother. "They expected you to go after them. They took your broomstick, and they figured you would leave me to distract the golem, because they knew the Lost City reminded me of Azkaban. When I went after them, they decided it would be child's play to stun me and throw me back to their creation after it killed you, so Regulus went out to see how you were doing. I expect he remembered that I am an Animagus from our last encounter, but neither of them would have known how this would be an advantage to me."</p>
      <p>"Are you immune to the mind arts as a dog?"</p>
      <p>"Not really. An animal's thoughts and feelings work differently from those of a man, but there are records of people communicating with Animagi whilst in their other forms. I was able to filter out the noise of the city by waiting for my brother to leave, hiding in a corner. When I no longer felt his presence, he would have decided that I either ran off or was paralyzed somewhere in the city, and in either case Goldstein would not need his help. I know him well, and I suspected he would have a greater interest in gloating as the golem reached you."</p>
      <p>"So you sneaked up on Goldstein and ripped his throat out?"</p>
      <p>"I would have preferred that he would have been sent back to Liberia on kidnapping charges, but I don't have a lot of options as a dog and time was of the essence. Regulus would not be going out to visit you if he thought you had the slightest chance of defeating him in a duel." <em>It was pretty much over when he found me. </em>"I reasoned that you would be as hungry as I am, and your strength would be flagging soon."</p>
      <p>"So what are we going to do, put your brother in a box and go eat somewhere?"</p>
      <p>"First we have to do something about the city," Sirius decided.</p>
      <p>"Oh, come off it, I'm starving."</p>
      <p>"Have a summoned cherry or something. I was in prison for most of your life."</p>
      <p>"<em>Accio cherries,</em>" he incanted, seeing nothing flying in his direction. <em>Huh. I guess if they could just summon the crops from the farms, they wouldn't need the farmers to come and sell them. There must be some jinx that helps to hide this place.</em></p>
      <p>The city was around a hundred yards away, and it was a painful hundred yards, but a relatively short trip. The gates were not opening for them, so the former prisoner shrugged and climbed the walls by the narrow logs sticking out of them. <em>I reckon that's how he got in earlier.</em></p>
      <p>Charlie suggested that he enter by himself, so he could stun someone, drag him out, and they could begin to diagnose the problem. The older wizard agreed to it, probably guessing that he would steal some food on a detour, but allowing it all the same. <em>I'll get something for him on my way back.</em></p>
      <p>There were grapes hanging from a vine, which made for a good snack, but the trouble with trying to stun someone was that everyone knew his intentions. He tried to communicate that they were under the Imperius curse, and Regulus would have cast it, since Goldstein was already dead, but they appeared to disregard the notion. To make matters worse, they seemed to have some kind of loyalty to their captor, and they knew he was a personal enemy. <em>Best be on my way.</em></p>
      <p>Outside, Sirius had been placing a few more charms and curses over his brother.</p>
      <p>"Bad news. He was the one who cast the curse, so they're not going to get out of it as long as he's alive." He tossed a cluster of grapes to his partner, who nodded. "I reckon they don't have any kind of resistance to the mind arts."</p>
      <p>"The rustic we met earlier resisted it, but only whilst he was outside the city. The community as a whole is quite powerless if so much as a majority of its people are being controlled." He recalled that the wizard who led them to the city had led them into a trap for the sake of his children. <em>He didn't really trust us- he just needed to resist the curses Sirius was using on him so we wouldn't suspect the city would be dangerous. It would've been the easiest bloody thing for Regulus to put out a description of us on the mental grapevine.</em></p>
      <p>"Well, yeah, and they managed to get to a majority because people don't have any kind of mental shields- before that, they really don't have any individuality. The bloke we met just happened to be an exception. Are we going to ask him some questions?" he asked, gesturing at their prisoner with his wand. The grapes tasted about as delicious as food could be expected when he was starving, but he would need something else pretty soon.</p>
      <p>"Always in a hurry," the former Azkaban resident murmured. "<em>Rennervate.</em>" The wizard's eyelids flitted open, but those were the only parts of his body that moved. "Good evening, dear brother." As Charlie stared at the two of them, mere feet apart for the first time, the resemblance became all the clearer. <em>Hope I never have to meet Bill or one of the others like this. </em>"As I was levitating the corpse of your old confederate, I might have heard you mention something about leaving the service of the Lord Voldemort. Perhaps you could shed some more light on the subject."</p>
      <p>"You mean to kill me." The younger wizard tried to think of some way to prove that they would not, but they lost nothing by doing so. Sirius seemed in less of a hurry to deny it.</p>
      <p>"Eventually, yes; it's a matter of when. If you would like to extend your life, tell me what I wish to know."</p>
      <p>"Ah, but what is it that you wish to know?" <em>I guess his first question wasn't that specific.</em></p>
      <p>"Why did you leave the Dark Lord?"</p>
      <p>"He does not care about us, Sirius. For your information, I did care about you, for though you were a wayward son, you were one of us. The world of magic matters to you, however you pretend, more than that of the muggles. Our master gathered us almost exclusively to protect us whilst he destroyed both, though he seemed inclined to start with our own. I suspect the others are hedging their bets in some way, perhaps waiting for an opportunity to turn on him, but I believe it an opportunity that will never come. I was a cunning Slytherin, of the variety that the Lord Voldemort never wanted in his service in the first place." He glanced toward Charlie. "He and I were too similar to get along."</p>
      <p>"You seem to believe that it is impossible for your master's followers, those closest to him, to ever kill him," Sirius prompted. <em>He's willing to indulge his brother's way of talking all around things until he gets to the point at the end. </em>"Perhaps you could tell us more about that."</p>
      <p>"Most of his enemies know of the curses and enchantments on his person, the charm to fill his lungs with air if he were suffocated, the dark shield around his heart that allows only his own blood to pass to prevent poisoning, in truth I would not be astonished to find some of those were lies. What most of his enemies do not know, is what they have not experienced themselves. The Dark Lord does not intend to die. His priority is removing threats to his life. If something seems like a threat to his life, he removes that first. If something seems like a threat to a measure of his own preservation, he removes that second. It something seems like a threat to his ability to remove threats, he removes that third."</p>
      <p>"Okay, we get it, he wants to go on," Charlie said, annoyed. "That's not the only way to lose the damn war. If he's the only one left and we can't do anything about him, what's he going to do all on his lonesome?" He was beginning to believe Regulus in that he could predict the moves of his former master, as annoying as both of them were. "He'll have to die eventually, right? If he didn't have his allies, he'd just seal himself up somewhere and do whatever it is he does for the next five thousand years."</p>
      <p>"With the Philosopher's Stone I would not be so sure; without it, yes, like any other mortal he would perish."</p>
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<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Mission Report</h2></a>
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    <p>According to Macmillan, there were posters of Hannah all over Diagon Alley. It still left a bad taste in his mouth to leave a man behind, much worse one of whose loyalties he remained uncertain. He was a spirited Hufflepuff, and there was no excess in his denunciation of his former House, which would have been suspect, but every so often Ron wondered. His authority over the company was going to have to be maintained; it was not a one-time promotion. Keeping in contact with his injured subordinate through another subordinate seemed to be a good place to start, if nothing else.</p><p>The latter subordinate's father lived only a matter of yards from the Burrow, where he was sorely tempted to return, even though he knew it was empty. His father and mother were working for the Order now, which meant his father was auctioning old Ministry secrets to the goblins for gold, one of the only sources of income, after the Black properties of which Crouch's government knew had been seized. He was relatively sure Percy was in good with the present government, but his family's treason would most likely be treated the same as the Mafloy family's treason, so he was being watched extensively to ensure he was not in contact with any of them. <em>Unless he really is playing both sides, I can't figure why he doesn't just quit if he can't help us at all.</em></p><p>"Are you quite ready to begin?" Xenophilius asked from the sitting room. The Gryffindor had found himself staring out the window. He continued to hope that the location was too obvious for the Department to suspect he would actually pick it, but in their eyes he was nothing more than a child, inclined to side with the familiar over the unexpected.</p><p>"Best get started," he muttered back, refraining from clapping. He took a seat between Harper and Luna, who had taken to eyeing each other warily. It seemed probable that he was not doing a good enough job concealing the fact that he trusted one more than the other, though perhaps that was to be expected. Recently, the Ravenclaw had brought up some of the same suspicions he had about the Slytherin running off into the crowd during the mostly fabricated Death Eater attack.</p><p>"Who founded this resistance organization?" the wizard asked. It seemed the writer for this particular interview would be the editor himself. <em>Either that's some sort of compliment or he's about as short-staffed as we are.</em></p><p>"Terry."</p><p>"Hermione." He looked over at Lovegood, who just shrugged. "She was the one who told me about it, so I thought she had the idea for it."</p><p>"In part. It was a joint effort, but I did reckon I could count the first leader as the founder." He shook his head. "It actually started as a study group. Guess you know how things are going when a handful of students practicing magic together is an act of rebellion." The editor nodded.</p><p>"So, where are these Ravenclaws now?"</p><p>There was a pause.</p><p>"Uh, if this can be off the record, Hermione and I had a difference of opinion, so she took off for further study elsewhere, but she's still a member and welcome back with us any time. I suppose you could say she's on a specialized training mission."</p><p>"Interesting. Did you have a Hufflepuff with you?"</p><p>"Most of them were tossers," Ron said, "Go ahead and put that on the record. Hannah got captured at the end of last year, and if she ever gets out, she should look in the place where we practiced that one spell that she couldn't quite get, and then walk ten miles east."</p><p>The bit about walking east was an obvious false lead, but it made it harder for anyone to track her. He expected anyone who wanted to catch her would probably set up an ambush to the east of the Shrieking Shack, keeping it in view. <em>That's if they know we were practicing there.</em></p><p>"You expect her to still be imprisoned?" the editor asked.</p><p>"I mean, yeah, unless she got out somehow. If I ever saw a wanted poster; I'm pretty sure she'd be out."</p><p>It seemed time to move on to the next question.</p><p>"Well, the question I should think all of our brave readers would like to have answered- what motivates you?" The eccentric wizard was right about that question being the rub. <em>Hermione said it best, but I can't keep handing her credit while she's someplace else. It'll look like we lost our leader.</em></p><p>"We decided there were things that we valued, like truth and justice. There are more things, like transparency, fairness, freedom- it's not in any particular order, at least not for me. It seems like the blood purists are trying to win the war so they can just write themselves into the history books as the winners of the argument... and while we were in school it seemed like the conspiracy in Hufflepuff, which turned out to be a proxy for the Department, was just trying to do the same, but they put some more effort into the rhetoric rather than keeping everything secret. Basically, after we- sort of- won against Voldemort, the blood purists got a few positions they wanted, but blood purism was connected with him, so they couldn't talk about it. You get some people on the other side who used to work for Crouch keeping up the wartime propaganda, and it's no surprise you end up with this crusade to destroy dark magic and imprison anyone with purist leanings."</p><p>He had thought about the speech ahead of time, but had not put the effort into rehearsing it. <em>It's not s'posed to sound rehearsed anyway. It'd make people think we'd been working with the Quibbler.</em></p><p>"Interesting," Xenophilius said, visibly containing himself. <em>What in Merlin's pants got him so excited? </em>"I imagine an entirely new government would be in order after your victory?"</p><p>Ron decided not to mention that he had not made plans for victory. Getting somewhere near there would make it seem more worthwhile.</p><p>"Don't think the whole system needs to be thrown out, just a ton of the people in it, and then there're some minor changes that'll make this kind of thing less likely. People in the proper government need to be aware of the Department of Mysteries." He was only half-lying. The last thing he wanted was to sound like he was, but the best way to sound honest was to be consistent.</p><p>"What would you say to those who argue you need to pick one side or another?" the editor asked. "If you don't have an answer yet, that's fine, it can be off-record." <em>Stop helping me. You don't want it to look like you're helping me.</em></p><p>"Well, they both hate us, so if you don't like either of them, you should really join us for the same reason. I'm half-joking about that," he clarified. Lovegood's father looked like the type of wizard who needed to be told. "You really shouldn't join one side because it opposes the other one. You think about it, even if one side were slightly less terrible than the other, why don't they join us? If there are enough of us to make a difference against the worse side, there are enough of them to join us and have something better than either outcome." He breathed heavily from his nose. "I don't think they really thought about the outcome; it's mostly just fear and ancient grievances that they have going for their arguments."</p><p>If the Gryffindor had been asked a few years ago about making arguments and conducting debates, he probably would have just said 'why?'. <em>Really, it was Hermione and Terry always making me think about things. Hannah helped. Now I just don't have them with me.</em></p><p>"Daddy, please don't make it too easy for us," the witch next to him requested. "You don't want people to think you're biased. Don't mention me by name, just say that he has members of all four Houses including himself." It was something that had already occurred to Ron, but he mostly thought nothing of it. He had never been prejudiced against Ravenclaws in any way, and the other two were so extreme they were bound to leave some people in the lurch. He glanced to the window again. <em>I could say the same thing about mine, though. Everyone down to Dennis Creevey had picked a side by the time the place was blown up.</em></p><p>"Worry not, dearest. I usually write the final versions of the questions to make me sound more neutral, or even that I am challenging the guest. I rarely challenge guests, though, since few enough people agree to interviews even without the threat of being interrogated." <em>Struggles of an honest newsman, huh?</em></p><p>The questions moved on.</p><p>"Have you heard of the views of the blood purists?" the strange wizard asked.</p><p>"Yeah, I had to go to school with Malfoy for like three and half years." He decided to omit the fact that he used to trade information with Zabini. "Barely talked to the bloke, but you hear things. Friends of friends and all that. Basically, they're pretty sure the muggles would either win in an all-out war against us, or if they didn't win the casualties would still be mad. They say the history books keep changing so that no one realizes the muggles are a threat, and they're right about the books changing, but we can't really prove the muggles are that bad, we can't prove they don't know about us already, and it's a damn wonder that the people who are the least worried about them are the ones who live among them." He remembered at some point that Harper had said the Hermione types were supposed to side with the muggles. "If it ever did come to a fight, and I'm not suggesting we push it in that direction, the reason the muggles will have their children on their side is because the Death Eaters can't promise to spare their parents. They've got absolute lunatics like the Lestranges working for them, and really that alone should invalidate whatever claim they have to being right."</p><p>"Interesting," Xenophilius repeated. <em>About how many times d'you reckon you're going to say that?</em></p><p>"We're aware of the arguments," Harper intervened. "The short version is they have more points than the Ministry will give them, and that's what drives volunteers in their direction, but they're taking a lot on faith and allowing themselves to be subjects to a mass-murderer."</p><p>"Ah. Were you driven from their ranks?"</p><p>"No." Everyone was looking at him. <em>He's claimed they wouldn't take him if he tried to join since he ran off already. </em>"I left for love." If anything could have made the wizard sitting across from them happier, Ron could not imagine what it was. He was also having difficulty coming up with reasons not to knock the Slytherin's lights out. <em>They were twelve, maybe; that doesn't fucking count, not by any stretch of the imagination. </em>The editor's quill was moving for another five minutes before his daughter reminded him not to be biased, at which point he looked up again.</p><p>"Worry not, worry not, I shall let the words speak for themselves. That is the very soul of a proper interview."</p><p>The Gryffindor found himself looking around again. He knew there needed to be alternative news sources, or everyone would just be reading the <em>Prophet, </em>but being a good thing for the island and its people did not mean any given magazine or newsletter was not in itself a gossip rag. <em>Well, it'll keep people on their toes, at least.</em></p><p>"Are you not going to ask us how we're getting on?" the Ravenclaw asked, cocking her head slightly.</p><p>"Yes, dearest, I might have that question first, even. How fares your war?"</p><p>"Well, I'm afraid I can't tell you all of our plans, but we can tell you that we're mainly recruiting and conducting reconnaissance. We found some suspicious characters at the announcement of the new Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You probably heard about the round, black shields, but the killing curses were passing through them, they weren't being blocked. I reckon the Ministry wants you to think the Death Eaters are still here, and they've got some kind of secret spell that blocks everything, but what if there was no one inside the shields? Think about it; what were they accomplishing there? They didn't kill anyone, it was just the one bloke casting the Dark Mark in the sky."</p><p>Lovegood stood up and walked out of the house out of nowhere.</p><p>"Pay her no mind. She might have heard the croak of a moon frog."</p><p>"A what?"</p><p>"Oh, you must have heard of them. A fellow from Western Australia flew to the moon on a Cleansweep Six and brought back a whole brood of moon frogs. It was a pleasant time interviewing him."</p><p>"You let one live in your garden?" Ron asked, presuming that the moon frogs did in fact exist. <em>Might've gotten over to our property if that's the case.</em></p><p>"Luna and I thought it best to let them run wild. She came up with a weight potion in third year that made them as light as a feather, the better to make them feel at home. She even knew that they would have to ingest them by absorbing the liquid through their skin. Isn't she simply brilliant?"</p><p>The Gryffindor had heard of brews that were similar to weight potions, both in the positive and in the negative, and the theory was sound for them. <em>She'd still have to be pretty damned clever to figure it out in third year and bring it home one holiday.</em></p><p>"I reckon so," he said, still looking to the open threshold.</p><p>
  <em>Ronald, please come outside.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Be there in a moment.</em>
</p><p>"Harper, take over the questions for a bit," he requested as he rose from the couch and walked out. "Might be we've been made." His fears were not realized as he passed through the door with his wand up his sleeve; it was just the Ravenclaw standing out in the grass, staring off into nowhere.</p><p>"I was checking with Ernest," she started, turning slightly. "It appears he may have discovered how Hannah escaped."</p><p>"He hasn't found her- has he?"</p><p>"No, I do not believe so." A moment passed.</p><p>"Then what happened?" he asked.</p><p>"Oh, he overheard something about how the Ministry school was in an impossible space, and it was destroyed in a matter of minutes," she explained as though she had not known she was meant to continue. "Theoretically, everyone inside would be dead."</p><p>Nothing was said for the moment.</p><p>"Are you...?"</p><p>"Mad? People have asked me that before. I'm mad for being proud of my father; I'm mad for not being proud of my father. It's a wonder what people consider sane."</p><p>"Well, I know that, but just... tell me what you think. Tell me if you think you're mad or not." The witch seemed to think about it for a moment.</p><p>"I have uncommon beliefs and uncommon preferences. I'm not mad, no." Another silence came and passed.</p><p>"Damned swell to have that out of the way," Ron muttered. "If Hannah was the only known person to have escaped alive, they're going to suspect her. We'll have to find her."</p><p>"You told my dad that about a place where she can meet us. As soon as he publishes the story, she will be notified in the fastest and safest way possible. Is Hannah going to make it easy for the Ministry to find her?"</p><p>"Well, no, but-"</p><p>"Then how would we find her?" <em>Damn. Damn, I don't have an answer for that. </em>"It may be that the information was false and they just wanted to lure us to a specific city."</p><p>"You're right." He shook his head. "You're completely correct about that. I'm going 'round the bend, Merlin..."</p><p>"Well, you have an excuse for that," she said, smiling. He did not ask her to elaborate, but for once she needed no invitation. "You love her, don't you?" The Gryffindor just nodded.</p><p>"We've got to get back in to finish the interview."</p><p>They went back inside, and he guessed Lovegood would have instructed Macmillan to stay put and refrain from searching for Hannah. It was something with which he had struggled for a while, but he guessed if he was forgetting himself to go rescue her, maybe it was true, what he had wanted to believe all this time. It seemed Harper had been answering questions to the point of his own nausea, so they let him take a break somewhere. <em>We've put him through enough. </em>It seemed the Slytherin liked being sarcastic and anti-social, so being in a conversation with a curious eccentric would probably be torture.</p><p>"D'you have any more questions?" Ron asked.</p><p>"I would like to know what happened during the destruction of Hogwarts. Many of our readers distrust the official account."</p><p>He started by confessing that he had only seen part of it, and that there were still some things that were beyond him, though Hermione had attempted to explain the magic going on at the time. Apparently, there had been something wrong with the school's warding, which had started her off on this academic crusade on the subject. If the castle could be brought low, without anyone noticing, there had to be some way, known only to the perpetrator, to remove wards, and she was perfectly convinced further study was essential before any progress could be made in the war effort.</p><p>When he was basically finished with his account, leaving out the part that it was Hestia Jones who had secured both portkeys for them, since she was a Ministry employee of some sort, probably deep cover. She had to be working with the Order, which made things difficult enough for her already, but he could not help but be a bit suspicious of her. She had received some sort of secret order from Dumbledore to protect Neville two years ago, which might have continued into last year, and if Hannah thought something was weird about her, he had to at least take her judgement into account. What made that difficult was Terry telling him that his prejudice against Slytherins, not just the bad ones, was the result of his trust for his family's judgement, and their judgement was based on what their ancestors thought, and it was turtles all the way down.</p><p>With the interview basically concluded, Xenophilius had a thought to ask them a handful of personal questions to humanize them.</p><p>"Mr. Weasley, would you happen to have a favorite Quidditch Team?"</p><p>"I've always liked the Cannons. I know they're rubbish, but I like rooting for the underdogs."</p><p>"As for the young lady who prefers not to be identified- what are your interests?"</p><p>"I happen to like going to balls and conducting field research," she responded, sanitizing any detail that would be a dead giveaway as to her identity. It was a few days ago when he said it, but he might have specifically ordered her not to bring up Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. She insisted that there were a growing number of <em>Quibbler</em> readers who reported seeing traces of them, and her father gave them free subscriptions because of it, but she was clever enough to know she was one of the only ex-students of Hogwarts still unaccounted. <em>Merlin knows where Dean is.</em></p><p>"And you, Harper, we heard of your... curt confession to being a romantic. While I would prefer to tantalize the readers with just that..." <em>Come off it, he's fourteen, no one's going to care. </em>"Would you like to tell us more?"</p><p>"No,"</p><p>"A man of mystery, then," the editor concluded, getting up and looking around for something. "One final matter of business- I confess I did not want to bring it up earlier in the event it was more interesting than the interview- <em>Accio letter- </em>Here it is, yes, in place of a sender I just have 'Order of the Phoenix'. Do you know anything about that?"</p><p>The letter was short.</p><p>
  <em>Ron.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your friend was very wise to reach out to us. Please do not take this out on her. We know about the interview, but there are more important matters to attend. At the earliest possibility, come to meet us in Grimmauld Place, Muggle London. There is someone here to see you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dad.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Wei</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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      <p>Hermione had been staying with the Order for all of a day before they decided it was time to try to find Ron. Really, apart from having witnessed a handful of important events, she could not fathom why the two of them were so important, though she supposed she was a guest of honor. The Xian and her instructor had released her after she asked them to be allowed to continue her investigation of the problem, but as always there was something they wanted. In digging through her mind and looking into the conflict in magical Britain, which had caught the attention of much of the world, one of them had been most interested in all the different sides and what they represented. She remembered her attempt to explain it as she aided Mrs. Weasley with preparing supper.</p>
      <p>
        <em>In most countries with a respected, authoritative, legitimate government, you will only find two sides in the event that an internal war occurs, those for and those against. The central difference with the conflict in my homeland is that Voldemort does not care about the government as long as it does not get in his way, and blood purism cannot be classified as a strictly 'anti-government' position. Opposing him and his minions essentially divides itself to pro-government and anti-government factions.</em>
      </p>
      <p>Her audience understood why there were oppositions to Crouch's authority, mostly because of the bad faith approach it was taking in its stated objectives. It was easy for them to see from her memories that the Ministry was taking more pains to keep itself in power than it had to fight the Death Eaters. It was fair, of course, for any state to suppress rebellion, but cracking down on insurrections before they started necessarily predicted that the state had plans that would invite rebellion.</p>
      <p>In short, the Xian wanted to understand the anti-government faction that was opposing Voldemort and his forces, since she had already identified herself as belonging to that very group, in a sense. Once out of range of their Legilimency, she allowed herself to think of another explanation, that they were looking for whichever side would leave Magical Britain the weakest after the war was over, but she felt that they might actually be wrong about that, if that had been their assessment. In any case, she doubted she would find Ron and Mafalda, since they were hiding from entities of greater resources than she, so she sought out the Order.</p>
      <p>Remembering some of the Hogwarts teachers had been members, and some of them lived in Hogsmeade, she drew an appropriate teleportation ward for getting there and arrived instantly, disguising herself with some charms to her outward appearance. The method of travel was something she had been studying, but her understanding of it was easily completed by those with infinitely more experience in the subject. At the village, she asked around for a few different teachers and where they might be residing, but the residents were less than willing to share information with a stranger. Fortunately, she found Hagrid at the Hog's Head.</p>
      <p>"Huh? 'ermione? Tha' you?" he had asked quietly. It appeared the alcohol was getting to him, which fit, since she counted about twenty discarded mugs.</p>
      <p>"Yes... are you still caring for the grounds?" she asked, motioning for him to follow her outside.</p>
      <p>"Bit 'o this, bit 'o that... when they moved the school, they said they didn' want any o' the creatures ter come with 'em. Big mistake, if yeh ask me." Her supposition that he knew she was a wanted criminal was confirmed as soon as they were outside. "What're yeh doin' here?"</p>
      <p>"I need to get in contact with the Order of the Phoenix. I know they won't base things at Longbottom Manor; it's too exposed..."</p>
      <p>"Come with me," he whispered, or what passed for whispering. "How'd yeh get here?"</p>
      <p>"I know a ward that teleports anything within it. I can't say that it will get through Anti-Apparation jinxes, but..."</p>
      <p>He told her the address, how to get in, and the rest was history.</p>
      <p>Hermione finished up helping the Weasley matron and went into the dining room, which was larger than it had any right to be, even when the property expanded itself to admit visitors. She understood they had received the place from Sirius Black, which explained the screaming painting. Apparently he did not share the same views as his deceased family members, which was a relief.</p>
      <p>Ron, and to her surprise, Luna and a boy she did not recognize entered through the front door. They were using some of the same appearance charms she had been before coming to Grimmauld place. Ernest Macmillan came in afterward. Their responses to seeing her varied. Everyone except the witch sort of looked away every time she looked at them.</p>
      <p>"You're back then."</p>
      <p>"Yes, whilst time permits. I am on an investigation with the Xian, a mostly independent group of senescent wizards with permission from both the Imperial Ministers and the school."</p>
      <p>"You never said you were going to China."</p>
      <p>"No, I thought it better for security purposes. Cho is still there."</p>
      <p>"Finally, she tells us the reason she came," Mrs. Weasley expressed, coming in from another room.</p>
      <p>"I didn't want to have to say everything multiple times." She maintained her neutral, reasonable tone. <em>I suppose it is a bit of a cold response to Ron, but he did not exactly run over and hug me... not that I would expect that. In any case, there are important matters to attend.</em></p>
      <p>Mr. Weasley was the first to return from dealing with the goblins, which was part of how he kept in touch with his oldest son. After him, Professor McGonagall apparated onto the millimetre-wide point that she had cut into the wards, which relied on her knowledge of exactly where it was to keep herself from splinching into a million pieces. She estimated that Hestia Jones would be a few minutes longer.</p>
      <p>"I heard you had an interview?" she prompted.</p>
      <p>"Yeah, just explaining a bit of what's been going on here." Ron took a seat at the table. "Seems the <em>Quibbler </em>readers want to know if there's any other options besides the Ministry and the Death Eaters."</p>
      <p>"Funny, the Chinese want to know the same thing." She looked around the room. <em>With everyone else doing work, this might be the greatest crowd of Order members I can expect. Aside from that, I really don't have long. </em>"Essentially, with our island being the tipping point of a global conflict, strong ministries with resources to spare have been interested in supporting one side or the other."</p>
      <p>"Why?" the boy next to Luna asked, or demanded, depending on how she interpreted his tone. "What reason would they have for helping us?"</p>
      <p>"A naive assessment, which assumes their intentions are limited to their statements, would conclude that they were disgusted by Crouch's government and unimpressed by the gift that Voldemort gave them, and decided to search for a third side more in line with their values." She took a bite of the blood sausages and mash Mrs. Weasley had prepared.</p>
      <p>"Well, that's definitely a naive assessment," the Gryffindor responded. "They wouldn't be helping us if they didn't think they would get something out of it." <em>I wasn't entirely finished, but that's what I expected. </em>Mr. Weasley seemed more interested in listening than talking.</p>
      <p>"Why is that, though?" she asked "Could they not see it as more likely that one side would win than the other? They could just decide to support the winner and then gain a convenient alliance."</p>
      <p>"If they were supporting the winner, it sure as hell wouldn't be us!" Ron shouted, annoyed that she did not appear to get it.</p>
      <p>"We're not winning? What are we doing, then, killing ourselves in some impossible slaughter?" she asked. <em>So far the two of us have been doing the most of the talking. Maybe the Order was right in bringing us together. </em>"Weren't you going to try to retrieve the Stone? Do you have any idea where it is?"</p>
      <p>"No, I still don't know where it is. The first step in any kind of operation is reconnaissance- we've uncovered that the Ministry most likely enlisted a current or former Death Eater to use in a false flag attack against themselves-"</p>
      <p>"Why didn't you join forces and use the information they already gathered and brought here?" she asked, referring to Grimmauld Place.</p>
      <p>"Look around the room, Hermione- I'm not having tea parties with Neville's grandmother so she can invite foreign interests over and ask them how much of our country they want in exchange for some tacit support they'll withdraw later! I don't even have to ask to know what happened, without Dumbledore, there's not a damn phoenix in the Order." She was tempted to ask if he had thought of that in advance, but it seemed Professor McGonagall had other ideas.</p>
      <p>"For the record, Mr. Weasley, you are correct in assessing the most likely reason our organization is smaller than it was in the last war. The most I could ask of Elphias Doge and Sturgis Podmore were monitoring actions against the Death Eaters, who have apparently spread beyond the continent." Her stare of steel had not diminished. "I shall not, however, suffer this manner of disrespect. You did not join us, as Miss Jones informed us, because you were of an age where you would not be assigned responsibilities. That is of course entirely correct, I would have insured you and your friends would have a place in the Irish school young Mafalda now attends."</p>
      <p>It looked like Ron wanted to object. <em>She is essentially confirming his suspicions that they would have relegated him to less-dangerous tasks. </em>It also looked like Mrs. Weasley was going to agree with that assessment.</p>
      <p>"Consider your level of experience," the old Transfiguration teacher continued. "You have magical ability considerably beyond the average fifth-year, unless I am to understand you traveled here from the Lovegood residence in a matter of minutes without the use of Apparation." Hermione's eyes widened. He had said he was going to work on it, but she had not exactly taken him at his word. "The same can be said of at least one of your associates, since she has already attempted to pass through my mental shields, though I should note my expectations were far lower for dropouts like the other." The wizard glared at her rather than looking ashamed. "At the same time, you would not survive an encounter with even the weakest of the Death Eaters, even with your other associate. A Hufflepuff, I presume?"</p>
      <p>"How did you know?"</p>
      <p>"Those with the <em>potential </em>to lead draw all kinds, Mr. Weasley. Very few first-year students could have encountered the Lord Voldemort and lived to tell about it; even the boors Crabbe and Goyle could see that your orders were worth the taking. Do you, however, believe that you should be a member of the Order, on equal footing with your father?"</p>
      <p>If Ron did believe it, he was unable to make the argument with the man himself in the room. The Ravenclaw momentarily wondered what he thought was fair, but she found herself more interested in Luna's abilities with the mind arts. Reaching out quietly, she detected mental shielding without making herself known, but the girl waved at her, which seemed to suggest she was aware.</p>
      <p>
        <em>What is it?</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>I only wanted to check your shielding.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>I see. I'm actually kind of an open book. Ron asked me to see if I could link the company's minds together, so I did it.</em>
      </p>
      <p>Hermione hoped her change in expression would not be visible on her surface thoughts. Elsewhere she heard the Gryffindor confessing to his old Head of House that he knew he was a bit young, and he knew they would be right to keep him from dangerous tasks, which was why he had to strike out on his own. He did not know where Dean was, if that was her next question. Professor Mcgonagall sighed.</p>
      <p>"His case worries me more than yours." She inclined her head slightly as she spoke. "The staff did its best to keep the truth from the students, on the orders of our late Headmaster no less, but the truth is, Mr. Thomas most likely died, if only briefly, but Professor Snape managed to stabilize his condition and provide him with unicorn blood, which will fate him to a cursed existence." To Hermione's observation, she seemed less concerned about what her former student might do than what might become of him. "Before you ask, we have not heard from him either."</p>
      <p>She had heard that their old Potions master had been something of a double agent during the last war, presenting himself as a spy for both sides, and eventually declaring that his loyalty had been for Dumbledore the entire time. <em>Well, it is rather easy to say that once Voldemort was dead. Would things have been different had the other side won? </em>Having not seen him at Grimmauld Place, she expected he had decided it was unlikely the Order would win, and would simply stop reporting to them. <em>Wouldn't that make it obvious that he was no longer spying on them for his master, though? He must have said something about stopping his spying campaign, otherwise that would make it seem like he was never spying in the first place.</em></p>
      <p>"Miss Granger, what exactly have the Xian offered?" the former teacher asked.</p>
      <p>"They were not terribly specific in that regard," she started, glancing back over to Ron, but it seemed he would at least hear her out. "They seemed to be threatened by the existence of a dark wizard who can keep himself from dying, but most of their focus was on getting rid of Crouch's government, which is fair enough."</p>
      <p>"Did they know you would think that?" the wizard next to her old friend asked. "You seemed to imply earlier that they knew you hated your own ministry."</p>
      <p>"I made no secret of it." She chose not to mention that they could have read it out of her head if they felt like it.</p>
      <p>"Then they know you don't like a system that's trying to be like their system-"</p>
      <p>"I- I did not tell them that their system was not my preference; if anything I would have confessed to preferring it just by living there for months on end-"</p>
      <p>"Immigration is not the sincerest form of flattery. If you supported their system, you would support Crouch's efforts and wait around for him to die and be replaced by someone else. People who believe in a system of total control do not object to specific people being in charge, because they do not believe they should have any input into which group of people are at the helm." Luna sent her a quick mental note that the young wizard's name was Harper.</p>
      <p>"They could have read every thought in my head, Harper," she explained. "They would know that, as you suspect, I was only using their school as a place of refuge where I could continue my education as a wanted criminal."</p>
      <p>"Then they knew what you wanted."</p>
      <p>"What bargaining power do I have? I'm not the Queen. What does it matter that they knew I had a stake in the conflict?" She had never liked the expression 'an elf in the fight'.</p>
      <p>"They knew that you could come here and offer their help to us," Ron answered, most likely just figuring it out himself. "They knew that if we requested help from them, it would all seem legitimate, because our only problem, from the very beginning, was that we would never win as things were. If we had a powerful ally, everyone would side with us. The whole damn country, really."</p>
      <p>"Are you telling me they expected me to hide their involvement from you?"</p>
      <p>"Not really, but they prob'ly figured we'd want to look like we did everything ourselves, so they'd disguise themselves as us, come up with reasons for why they were so strong, and hit the biggest targets before leaving. Wouldn't need to do much after that, since the island would support us. We'd be cleaning up and trying to figure out what to do about the Death Eaters, and around then they'd tell us they'd reveal that they helped us unless we gave some of their ministers key positions in the new government." He sighed. "Harper had it right, unluckily. There's nothing stupid about accepting help, but the appearance of it would ruin us. Everyone on the bloody island would know we only threw out Crouch because we gave the country away in the process, whether or not it was part of the deal."</p>
      <p>Everyone in the room was silent for a moment. Hermione wanted to bash her own head in. <em>How could I not see something so simple? They practically taught it to us in our lessons-</em></p>
      <p>
        <em>It's okay, Hermione. I fall for tricks sometimes. I think they guessed you would not suspect they would use an aspect of their system against you because they knew that in your heart, you had no love for it. Perhaps they counted on your ability to figure it out, though. That's something you haven't considered.</em>
      </p>
      <p><em>Thank you, Luna. Please never enter my thoughts again. </em>The other Ravenclaw smiled at her. <em>Well, not without... knocking.</em></p>
      <p>It was more or less established that taking the deal the Xian offered would be trading one master for another, if the second promised to be more benevolent. She knew the Order had little contact with the international community since Dumbledore died, so McGonagall had asked her a number of questions about what was going on in China since she arrived, though she doubted the answers were satisfactory. Apparently their one contact in the continent was Remus Lupin, and he was trying to persuade packs of werewolves not to side with Greyback, and it seemed to be working. On the rare occasion that he visited, he had the strangest of questions for the Weasleys.</p>
      <p>"Ron, have you seen your rat?" she asked whilst Harper was answering questions for the Deputy Headmistress, to his apparent chagrin.</p>
      <p>"No. I really haven't seen him since some time last year. Why?"</p>
      <p>"Well, you remember Professor Lupin, right? He's been asking a lot of questions after Mr. Weasley told him about a rat that had lived for twelve years."</p>
      <p>"Huh. I always thought Mum and Dad just went out to the garden to get a new one every three or so." Hermione's eyes narrowed. <em>You did not always think that, you were tricked when you were eleven at least. </em>"Does he think he's seen the rat before?"</p>
      <p>"Well, yes, he thinks the rat might actually be thirty five years old. Basically, the reason he was able to stop being a werewolf-" <em>That's right, he would have heard about that from Hannah. </em>"-was because this old friend of his named Sirius Black came to visit him in his Animagus form. Werewolves are not inclined to attack non-humans, and essentially the Hogwarts staff along with Black managed to calm him down enough to figure out what he had done to himself to remain in his beast form."</p>
      <p>"Wait, I thought Sirius Black was in-" The Gryffindor thought about it. "Never mind, go on."</p>
      <p>"When his old friend came to help him, Professor Lupin initially believed that the long years of suffering under the dementors eventually made him repent of his wrongdoing, or possibly destroyed so many of his memories he was no longer the same person. It was... odd, though, because before leaving to help the Order, Black insisted that he was innocent, and he had never betrayed his friends, because a man named Peter Pettigrew actually committed the crimes he was accused of committing, and then faked his own death."</p>
      <p>If Ron looked a bit tempted to say that it sounded convenient, it was for nothing.</p>
      <p>"Pettigrew would have been working for the Death Eaters, then?"</p>
      <p>"He would have. He was an Animagus."</p>
      <p>"Why would he hide with us? There aren't any other Animaguses that turn into rats?" Ron asked, apparently having to come to terms with the implications. "How did he fake his own death if Lupin doesn't think he's dead all of a sudden?"</p>
      <p>"Apparently he cut off his finger before using an advanced explosive charm." <em>That would explain why Professor Lupin kept asking about the rat missing a toe on one of its forelegs.</em></p>
      <p>Her friend stared forward again. He seemed to be lost in thought. <em>It was meant to be a beloved family pet, even if he complained about it...</em></p>
      <p>"Well, don't see any harm in stunning him if I ever see him again."</p>
    </div>
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<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Reading the Quibbler for Some Reason</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had not been hard to find the article.</p><p>Since she had essentially escaped from prison after being let out of another prison, she had been engrossed in the task of finding news. Magical newspapers were generally enchanted to look like muggle newspapers floating in the wind when they entered a nonmagical area; it was some sort of transfiguration ward, but the process could be reversed. The other girls found her to be about as interesting as she promised, regaling them with tales that they probably thought were fabricated, and by consequence she had been allowed to stay a little longer. Grabbing a few discarded newspapers out of rubbish bins and out of the gutter, conscious of the fact that some of them probably really were muggle newspapers, she decided she would have to use the Leaky Cauldron entrance, and that required her to come up with a false identity.</p><p>Hannah eventually settled on that of a squib named Wendelona Wycross, who just wanted to get into Diagon Alley for a newspaper, she decided she would ask someone at the pub to open the portal on her behalf. She could probably figure out the pattern herself with her wand, since it had come with the brochure sent to the parents of magical children, but her wand was an identifying factor, and she wanted something as far from her actual identity as possible. <em>I really can't afford to cast spells, because of the Trace, so if someone asked me to do something in return, I would be at a loss.</em></p><p>Walking there while her new friends were out, she had her wand in her jacket, where she would hopefully not be tempted to reach for it, but still able if she needed. The goal was to be as forgettable as possible, so she spared the time of thinking up some kind of interesting backstory and resolved to instead just act like a bit of a mendicant. She'd have some kind of sob story about why she needed help, and that she was looking for ads in the paper, but no one in the wizarding world ever wanted to hire squibs, and she could not stand to live in the muggle world when she knew something better was out there.</p><p>Getting to the place without being spotted was at least doable, after she stole some black hair dye from her roommates, which she hated and would have to pay back later. She really could not stand looking in the mirror and seeing her hair the way it was, but she guessed most normal girls had that problem, at least from time to time. She ducked through the crowd and stood by the bricks in the back, waiting for someone to come along. It turned out to be an older witch in a green suit that was already being transfigured into robes.</p><p>"Excuse me, could you please let me through? I'm a squib and I'm-" The witch rolled her eyes and took care of it without any further explanation. <em>That's right. The vast majority of people in the world do not care about me at all. </em>Ever since becoming a werewolf, it had been less of a chilling thought and more of a reassurance. When she thought about the people about whom she could realistically say she cared, it was a short list, at least on a personal level. Outward from that list, there were distant relatives, friends of friends, fellow Hogwarts exiles, and girls her age. Strangers meant virtually nothing to her when she was being honest with herself, unless she had something non-trivial in common with them.</p><p>Walking down Diagon Alley in normal clothes, she felt a little out of place, but perhaps that was what people expected to see, someone who felt out of place. She knew the newspapers were not sold in convenient boxes on every corner, but with a little luck, she would not need to try to buy any. As she ducked into a dark alley, she got out a few of the discarded papers, one of them transfiguring itself into a recent edition of the <em>Prophet.</em></p><p><em>I don't need that. I had access to it the entire time I was in the Ministry school. </em>Walking further down the darker, quieter street she came across a newsboy drinking what looked to be his twentieth firewhiskey. He had taken to resting on a bench.</p><p>"You a muggle or somethin', birdie?"</p><p>"I'm- I'm a squib. Do you have any papers apart from-"</p><p>"Yeah, yeah, I got yeh. 's about the only reason anyone comes to see me." He was digging through a leather bag when she noticed that his skin was not just pale under the eerie light; he really was deathly white. "These've been sellin' better'n ever in the last forty years, 'least among our sorts." He handed her a recent <em>Quibbler.</em></p><p>"You're a vampire, aren't you?" She could smell blood as clearly as she could see him.</p><p>"It's not so bad, not really. Can't seem to wreck my liver no matter how hard I try."</p><p>"Well, looking like you do, do they ever let you into the pubs?" she asked, reading. Her understanding of kinship seemed to have updated itself to include fellow dark creatures.</p><p>"They know me around here. Even if they didn', they'd prob'ly still let me in. Think I met the Dark Lord 'round here once- mighta been '91." He scratched his head as she thumbed through the magazine. <em>Most of this is rubbish. </em>"Then again, it mighta been before the war. That'd be the first time I met him, workin' at Borgin and Burke's. Don' think much of it; everyone runs into me eventually."</p><p>"Borgin and Burke's?"</p><p>"Right down that way. They've got a sign, or can't you read- ah, well, they haven' fixed the damn thing in ten years. I do believe Burke's dead, but Borgin's still there. Couldn't tell you why old Tom Riddle wanted to work there."</p><p>"I'll have to ask Borgin, then. Thanks for the-" His palm was sticking out, but she gave him a kiss on the cheek.</p><p>"Thanks fer that, Miss. I'll be tellin' the mates I finally got one, I will." The strange boy scampered off. <em>Now I can't entirely rule out that he's a normal twelve year old. What accent was that?</em></p><p>Running the back of her hand over her mouth, she made her way over to the store, reading a pointless article about magical creatures that she was relatively sure Hagrid had never mentioned. <em>Well, I guess it could be something like a cryptid from anywhere else... weren't those based on real animals? </em>She nearly walked into a darker witch as she stepped out of a strange building, the smell of cologne all over her. She stopped dead in the street as she read the next article, hearing Ron's voice in the words. She imagined if the girls from the house could see her, they would make fun of her. They would call her lovesick. Whether that was true or not, she could not care less, and their saying it was even less important.</p><p>Putting her back against a wall and sliding down, she shelved her other plans. She read every word of the interview twice. <em>Where's Hermione? What happened to her? </em>The text was not being terribly explicit, but she decided it was unlikely her friends would give away her location. <em>She must be doing something important... I know she didn't just leave. </em>She took note of the time and place where she was meant to meet Ron, stuffing the rolled-up magazine into her jacket. <em>That's something else I can't let the normal girls find.</em></p><p>Going into the store, trying to counter the possibility it would close at odd hours, there was a strange wizard manning the counter. He asked her if she needed any help finding anything and she resisted the urge to ask about coffin brochures. He was being nice, to be sure, but no one that old and creepy was going to get away with addressing a teenager. It was less of a knee-jerk reaction of hers and more of a fact of life, she decided. Perusing the dark artefacts as though something would jump out and tell her that Tom Riddle had been present decades ago, her eyes rested on a familiar word.</p><p>"That's the cup of Helga Hufflepuff," Borgin explained, appearing behind her somehow. "Not our usual wares, no, but it was a bit of a rare find."</p><p>"May I ask how much it is?"</p><p>"I'll let you have it for an even million." Hannah rolled her eyes while turned away, possessed of not even the slightest doubt that she was getting a substantial discount. She was still curious, however.</p><p>"How did you get it?"</p><p>"This old witch named Hepzibah Smith left it to young Tom Riddle in her will. Couldn't imagine why; I think he just went over there and said he liked it. Didn't have any other family, I don't believe." He squinted. "What House were you in Hogwarts, if I may ask?"</p><p>"I was in Slytherin," she said, noticing he hardly blinked. "I can tell you a few of the passwords we used to get into the common room." <em>Neville wrote them down on his hand.</em></p><p>"I wouldn't know them."</p><p>"I can tell you about the Bloody Baron." <em>Neville recounted a few of the stories he told from his life.</em></p><p>"So could anyone else who got him talking once or twice." Borgin was a tougher nut to crack than she had thought. It was obvious what she was doing and why she was doing it. <em>Anyone who wanted to get him talking about artefacts would claim to be in Slytherin.</em></p><p>"I can tell you a little about the basic prerequisites of blood purism."</p><p>"There's a good lass; no need to repeat them here. There's taboos on some of those words." He was leaning forward as he said it, indicating genuine concern. <em>It must work like the Trace. </em>"Don't want any Ministry folk in here."</p><p>"I understand that perfectly. Would you happen to have any mechanism of keeping the Trace off me?" she asked, having heard some rumors. He gestured for her to look around the shelves. It seemed reasonable that he would not know everything that he had in the store. "So the Dark Lord used to work here?" she asked.</p><p>"I contain the honor, if only just. The current government would prefer to light everything up down Knockturn Alley, overturn every stone, but they would be surprised what they would find here."</p><p>"Resistance?"</p><p>"Sadly, no, all of that has left for the continent, we believe. Couldn't have happened at a worse time, either. Grindelwald has been released from Nurmengard." Hannah nearly dropped the shriveled hand she was holding, but disguised it as an effort to pick up a black amulet on a bottom shelf. <em>Guaranteed to protect against werewolves. Well, I could've used that a few years ago. </em>Touching it proved painful.</p><p>"They won't... attack each other, will they?" <em>If they do, it will be all the good we can hope to come of it. Destroying Secrecy is the last thing we need now...</em></p><p>"I'm afraid it was all over the <em>Prophet,</em> and I can't figure out why they'd lie about something that went well for them. Had it straight out of the mouth of one of his old subordinates. Ministry's not claiming credit for his release though."</p><p>"They don't know who did it?"</p><p>"Even if they did it, they wouldn't say it. Wouldn't want to alienate all the continental governments that have to deal with the fallout. Word to the wise, a couple o' Death Eaters already said they would not tolerate the mere existence of old Grindelwald." <em>That's a strange statement to make. Why are they going after him when he just got out? Why not try an olive branch?</em></p><p>"Oh, well... I should probably get this one." She put an amulet on the counter. The label specifically said it would counteract the Trace and active wards. "Do you have anything that can get the wards off my wand without destroying it?"</p><p>"I'll throw it in. I've had lads your age darkening my door all hours of the night about that. There was a boy named Evan who wanted the same amulet. Did you ever run into him?"</p><p>"He's the Heir of Slytherin," she responded, acting confused. "Of course I ran into him." Hannah donned the amulet, acting like she was digging through her jacket for gold. "Is there any way I can test this thing out?" she asked, handing Borgin her wand.</p><p>"Of course," he said, looking her wand up and down. "Definitely ten inches... Mahogany..."</p><p>"Phoenix feather."</p><p>"One moment." He excused himself to the back of the shop, returning with an almost identical wand. "Should fit you. Try any spell you like. Last thing I want is the Ministry trampling through the shop, see."</p><p>"<em>Lumos,</em>" she incanted, the light charm working perfectly. She pointed the wand at him, acting excited. "It really is working perfectly... and no one's going to know I cast it?"</p><p>"Not a soul."</p><p>"That's excellent. I promise not to ask how you got it, or so many of them you happened to have one that was the same as mine."</p><p>"Right, right..." he trailed off. He could not have been less prepared for the stunner, as indicated by his head hitting the counter.</p><p>"I could take a guess, though."</p><p>Hannah doubted anything else in the store was obtained illegally, since stealing probably meant death on this particular street, but she did not have the gold for the amulet and that was all there was to it. She could put up with stealing from Death Eaters and the people who were directly helping them. Looking around the shop for anything else she could use, she saw a strange, triangular space on the floor surrounded by dust. <em>What used to be here? Where did it go?</em></p><p>Seeing nothing that could explain it and unable to justify further investigation, she decided it could have been sold. Without anything else that caught her eye, she left the store and walked out, putting her wand away and scanning the area for Ministry employees. Seeing none, she kept her guard up until she was back at the Leaky Cauldron, where she needed to figure out her next move. The meeting was pretty soon, and she had no way of getting there at the moment. <em>I guess I could sneak onto a normal train, as long as I have my wand and I can use it with impunity.</em></p><p>Looking around at the crowd in the pub, she decided she had to be suspicious of everyone, including the little old witches with seltzer water, the perfect disguise for dark wizards and Aurors alike. <em>If the world gets mad enough, there might be nothing but little old witches in the pub. </em>She got up and left, still not knowing where she was going. <em>I hope they have enough seltzer.</em></p><p>Getting back out onto the streets, she resisted the urge to thank the normal people for being normal. Her mind almost immediately returned to the task at hand. <em>I can theoretically summon a broom to my position if I see one, but outside of that, I'll have to find a train schedule and get an early start tomorrow. </em>She knew nothing of how to make portkeys or apparate, and the Floo Network was about as dangerous as marching right back into the Ministry. Getting back to the house, she found the girls were already there. Her amulet and wand were already concealed, having already used the latter to change her hair back to blonde.</p><p>"Hi, Hannah- is this you?" Maggie asked, holding out some kind of wanted poster.</p><p>"Depends, what do they think I did?" she asked, squinting at it.</p><p>"Apparently you killed over a hundred people in an explosion." <em>Well, more like an implosion.</em></p><p>"I'm sure they deserved it," she muttered. "When was this, yesterday?"</p><p>"No, this was a few days ago... the thirteenth-" <em>Damn. They thought I would try to establish an alibi among normal people.</em> "You didn't do, it though, did you?"</p><p>"Why would I do that? What in the last few days has indicated that I'm a terrorist?"</p><p>"This is your picture." It was somewhat strange to her that the photo was not moving.</p><p>"I'm sure it is. I don't know why they suspect me of anything. Maybe it was a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. I really couldn't tell you the first thing about building bombs or planning this sort of thing." <em>If muggle police see me, they might be under orders to shoot me, general policy be damned. I can't take a train. </em>She wanted to throw a tea kettle at someone, or maybe just have a cry. <em>I was just being stupid again. Why did I think I would only be wanted in the magical world? They have to have contacts in regular law enforcement who can act as an extra set of eyes.</em></p><p>It seemed the girls were willing to at least give her the benefit of the doubt as they saw she was getting upset. She could hardly blame them for suspecting her when she had been a stranger mere days ago. She had been as honest with them as the Statute would allow, going so far as to tell them a little about how Hogwarts worked, though she had to change a lot of things, but they could probably still tell she was not being entirely honest. <em>They could probably tell I was pulling Edenborough Academy out of my arse.</em></p><p>Not for the first time, she wished she had her friends with her.</p><p>Lying on the couch as everyone else went to bed, Hannah doubted that she had killed everyone in the Ministry school at the same time. For one thing, she was relatively sure that some people could have created expanded spaces within the expanded, space, leaving them with refuge in case the place collapsed, or perhaps even stabilizing the collapse. There was no way she was going to be so lucky that her enemies would have no means of keeping themselves alive, but she might have killed a few innocent people, the ones more likely to never have seen it coming. She tightened her grip on her wand. <em>I'm not staying a prisoner just so that the prison can stay up. Sooner or later they would have killed me- or they wouldn't, because then they would be next.</em></p><p>She thought of Ron, Hermione, and Terry, and what she had told the girls about each of them, which the Ministry would hopefully not be able to use when they were questioned. <em>Most of what was necessary for the stories was just their personalities... but I did tell them how I felt about each of them, and if they're captured before I find them, all the Department will have to do is subject them to the same treatment I had and they'll have me back before long... </em>The idea reminded her of thinking about dying while being held prisoner so that her friends would not try to get her out. <em>It's the same now as then. I can't give up.</em></p><p>"So, you and this Ron fellow..." Jackie had asked yesterday. The four of them were talking through a movie on the video player. "Did you ever do anything?"</p><p>"It never got that serious," she said, feeling a bit uncomfortable.</p><p>"He must not have liked you as much as you like him," Lottie observed. "I mean, you'd be fighting him off, s' long as he's a red-blooded..."</p><p>"I just told him it was moving too quickly already. So, really, it would be my fault. I know he likes me, and I know he would do most anything for me, but... it occurs to me now that we might not be compatible. We never really went through the tests of talking and dating." That much was obvious, since it was the reason it felt like everything was going at a faster pace than she would have liked. <em>It was like one minute we were friends and then the next minute we were trying to do stuff together... I never figured him for the type to hesitate, I suppose...</em></p><p>"Well, maybe you just needed some time apart, and if you both still like each other..." Maggie paused. "Actually, you should let him react to seeing you first. If he's broken your heart, you can at least keep your dignity by pretending you never liked him."</p><p>Somehow it was impossible to think of Ron with another girl, even after several months. <em>He wouldn't give me up for dead this quickly... it would take him even longer to stop punishing himself.</em></p><p>"Thank you," Hannah said. "I think he would feel worse if he saw me blubbering about it, though, so I'll probably throw my arms around him the moment I see him."</p>
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<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Secrets and Lies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Staring down at a silver mask as the pain of the magical brand still twinged in his arm, the thought crossed his mind that this day had been a long time coming.</p><p>
  <em>They say all things have their season, don't they?</em>
</p><p>Draco had finally taken a turn of being respected by the Death Eaters. Desperate risk after desperate risk had finally proven to be a better strategy than keeping his head down and waiting. In the past two days, his vassals had mostly gone back to school, though he had gone with Nott to visit his father under orders from the Dark Lord. They had already seen Jervis Mulciber, who clapped him on the back and told him he had a chance to be 'a regular Death Eater', like Avery or himself. He knew better than to show a lack of respect for the wizard's late friend, but he intended to be a great deal more significant than either of them.</p><p>The night they arrived at the Turkish hotel where Nott's father had been talking with diplomats, they did little more than collapse on their beds, but the following morning was more interesting. They had breakfast with Travers, who happened to be visiting from the Maghreb, where he was up to something fundamentally similar. He told them about giving the African dark wizards sample vials of the Elixir of Life, which they hoped to understand better, as a token of their appreciation for being so cooperative in their earlier dealings. <em>Perhaps the Lord Voldemort has an invented title, and he is no true blood purism, but he seems to understand the generosity that befits a noble.</em></p><p>"How go your talks with the Turks?" Travers asked. "I understand you find them to be reasonable."</p><p>"<em>Reasonable, </em>yes. They can be <em>reasoned with</em>, quite like a boggart or a rabid dire wolf. I'm dead certain some sort of reason motivates their actions." It was an evasive response if Draco had ever heard one, but all around the table kept eating as though he had answered the question in a satisfactory manner. <em>Not before Merlin comes again would I spoil my first chance to enjoy a proper breakfast just to interrupt a pointless conversation.</em></p><p>After Avery had granted him his mask and mark in Greece, he told the man about a few things he found suspicious regarding the liberation at Nurmengard before crossing the Bosporus by portkey. <em>This time last year, we were meant to have had an international Floo Network with all the allies of purism and dark magic. I suppose mine own efforts prove that the Dark Lord's plans can on occasion work, if I continue to have no idea what end result was intended.</em></p><p>The Death Eaters in various countries swearing their animosity toward Grindelwald was to be expected, since it was better not to look like they were allies, and they had the excuse that the old warlock opposed Secrecy, with it being a central tenet of blood purism. <em>Now all that remains to be seen is how the Lord Voldemort does not intend for this maneuver to cost us our anonymity with the muggles, as we have been claiming it will.</em></p><p>"Was it entirely a coincidence you came to visit us?" Nott asked, his father seeming to want to know the answer as well. Travers shook his head before swallowing.</p><p>"It was no more a coincidence that I came to visit you than that you and Draco came here to visit your father. Ordinarily, the Dark Lord himself handles Death Eater appointment, but he has recently made a statement to the effect that we are more concerned with that tradition than he is. As it turns out, he is quite capable of using the mind arts to convey a dark mark onto new recruits through any of his existing servants."</p><p>As Travers spoke it seemed the older man was growing more concerned. <em>He must know what is coming. His son would have told him about what happened.</em></p><p>"Why was it, then, that our master asked Avery to be an instrument?" Nott asked. "Was he otherwise occupied?"</p><p>Draco resisted the urge to chuckle. <em>Odd that you should call him 'our' master.</em></p><p>"The Dark Lord, you will find, is quite confident in his magical abilities," the visiting Death Eater answered. "Whenever any one of his servants is present, I would recommend you act as if he is present himself."</p><p>"Of course."</p><p>"Perhaps it would be easiest to explain this way, young master," Travers supposed. <em>He's enjoying himself. </em>"You had a rather strange vision the moment before your friend was appointed, no? Perhaps you could tell us about it."</p><p>"I was... it was as if I were standing before the Lord Voldemort in a dark room. There was a strange, hunching wizard with him, who was insisting that he had to be away again, that it had been to long and surely he would be noticed...Addressing me, he said that I had disobeyed Malfoy, I had lied, I had angered him and proven myself disloyal. Humbly I confess I was quite at a loss as to how to interpret this."</p><p>"Under the circumstances, I would suggest interpreting it quite literally," Draco started. "I know that your actions led to Bole's death." <em>I tire of this game. </em>"The vision you had was not a trick of the Dark Lord, but mine. I formed a link with him through Avery and projected into your mind."</p><p>"Malfoy- I used Bole's death to achieve our goal of freeing Grindelwald- without a distraction, someone to direct the guards away- unbecoming as it is to denigrate the ability of the vassals and their leader- we would not have had any hope of success- had I known they would kill him rather than stun him for questioning-"</p><p>Travers silenced Nott rather than let him continue to embarrass himself. The boy's father could not have had an expression of greater gravity or deeper hopelessness. <em>I should explain my grievance before he starts groveling as well.</em></p><p>"Had there been a necessity to sacrifice one of our men to achieve the goal of the Dark Lord, we would have swallowed the death and moved on with our plans. Deaths are not uncommon in our ventures. What I do not tolerate is my subordinates lying to me. I believe you sacrificed Bole because you believed he was of a lower rank than you, because his network of younger students could be reclaimed, and because with fewer vassals, each survivor would gain in distinction." He decided to omit that a bit of intelligence Nott had provided earlier, that the prison would contain a thousand other prisoners, turned out to be incorrect.</p><p>
  <em>I doubt there was any ill intent to the mission itself.</em>
</p><p>"It is customary to allow the offender to speak in his own defense," the old wizard said, lifting the silencing charm. "You believed it to be necessary to sacrifice one of your fellow vassals," he prompted. Nott stared at his father with wide eyes before responding.</p><p>"I was under no delusion a smattering of boys could invade a heavily guarded prison with no casualties, and whether or not any formal ranking indicated as such, I was indeed above Bole in being trusted and having proven myself trustworthy. Perhaps we could have escaped without a sacrifice, but there was no certainty of that. As far back as the memory of man remembereth not, deaths have been necessary in war, and it slipped my mind to notify any other vassal of my decision before they returned to school. I confess, in my human nature, I felt an irrational guilt in my choice of sacrifice."</p><p>"Your reasons are not satisfactory," Travers decided. "While the vassal lost is not of consequence to the Dark Lord, his death will be treated as a wrongful spill of pure blood, and your father will administer your punishment." He stood. "Draco, with me. I have a visit with your own father that can be delayed no longer."</p><p>If his intention had been to cut off any objection from the Nott family, the measures he took were unnecessary. Both allowed them to leave in complete silence. <em>Well enough. I do not tolerate traitors, and can be content with any punishment that suitably deters them. </em>He took a look back as the Death Eater readied the portkey. <em>I do wonder what the punishment will be, though.</em></p><p>They arrived in the magical part of Arles, a small, quaint wizarding community not unlike some of the ones he had seen in Britain. It seemed none of the blue-robed government officials were paying attention to them, but if he understood the situation correctly, the lower levels of law enforcement were simply filled with blood purists. They would do well not to welcome dark wizards, especially those from across the Channel, but they would look the other way. <em>If only they knew how many connections my father already has here. Our friends in Francophonic Africa have been making life interesting for them.</em></p><p>They entered a small salon where the Lord Malfoy acknowledged their appearance while talking with a rather large wizard with a red, smoking potion before him. There was a witch who appeared to just be recording the meeting, but even her expression revealed she was more interested in it than that. Draco had a suspicion she was much younger than she appeared.</p><p>"Your predictions regarding the developments in the French West continue to astound with their accuracy," the wizard said, praising his father. "Is this your son? I have heard a little about him."</p><p>"Yes, unfortunately, much of what you heard is likely false. I have a bit of a laugh with the boy every time some new tale is spun about a post to which he appointed himself, or some task he gave himself." <em>I cannot remember one time you laughed outside of being polite with the werewolves. </em>It was easy enough to see what his father was doing, however, and he would go along with it.</p><p>"I believe there was one about a... battle? At Hogwarts?"</p><p>"More than one, actually, though as you might expect there are at least three different versions of every story. I truly could not imagine which one you heard, but the ones I have heard have the common thread of making my son out to be a comical blunderer, an amusing notion as it could not be further from the truth."</p><p>"I see," the large wizard said. "Good to meet you, Draco."</p><p>"The pleasure is all mine," he responded, using a brush of Legilimency to supplement his understanding of French. He could say most things without such aids, but from time to time he missed a word and it helped to be able to translate it on the spot. <em>Who is the witch, Father? She has an odd sense of incredulity.</em></p><p>
  <em>Her expression says as much, yes. Address her as Madame Delacour.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Might our thoughts be intercepted?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It would be better to assume as much.</em>
</p><p>"What were your predictions, father?"</p><p>"Oh, only that in its ignorance, the magical government of Burkina Faso would venture far from its territory to attack a smattering of dark wizards, making the Secrecy issue worse than it already was. Pay it no mind, truly, little of consequence comes from that continent." The wizard across from him inhaled the fumes coming off the potion. "This one, however, proved to have the very manner of interesting developments that I anticipated. The conference of the great city of Ys led to some transformative developments."</p><p>"Oh?" the witch asked. "I had not been under the impression you were invited at any point."</p><p>"Invited, no, but well-connected, Madame. I met with quite a few people who had been in attendance and it was all to easy to have them talking about it. As I heard, the representatives from the island of my birth intend to create a legal precedent for hunting down terrorist sympathizers in the continent; something stronger than an extradition treaty. They brought with them a witch from the Department of Mysteries with a grand design for an artefact that would magically unify all the lands of Europe, that an enemy to one was an enemy to all."</p><p>"Precisely how would that work, father?" Draco asked.</p><p>"The extent of the detail described a binding magical contract, which I presume would be tied to government offices rather than people," his father answered. "I truly pity whatever dark wizards wander around in Europe. There could be nothing worse for them." <em>I should have destroyed that old goblet when I had the chance... anything that can move Evan around the map like that is a weapon too powerful for the Ministry to possess.</em></p><p>"Indeed," Madame Delacour said. "I should think that with Grindelwald running amok in the south, there would be no end to the sympathy for such measures."</p><p>The young Slytherin wanted to swear under his breath. Not only did he commit the worst Secrecy violation since Dumbledore destroyed the moon, he had only reinforced the advantages Crouch's government could press in controlling the continent as well. If his father had not been allowed into the conference at Ys, they were turning away people on the suspicion of being a Death Eater, meaning the Dark Lord had no way of knowing that the release of his old hero would spell disaster for their operations anywhere in Europe. Perhaps Africa or the Americas would be safe, for a time, but when they lost their home, no one would listen to them anymore. He found himself longing for the state of the world under Cornelius Fudge of all people, where they lived in stately manors in Britain, not on borrowed time in foreign lands. His father would not show it, of course, but there was no way he was not feeling the pressure.</p><p><em>How is the Dark Lord planning to use the distraction Grindelwald affords?</em> Though it seemed Voldemort respected him the smallest measure more than he had, he did not want to be the one to tell him that time was running out to disrupt the plans of the Ministry. The forces of blood purism had lost an incalculable amount of ground already, and if the proposal went through, they would lose the rest.</p><p>"Is there any news from your home, Lucius?" the wizard with the potion asked after a pause.</p><p>"Too much, I opine. Apparently there were some passing Chinese wizards who explained for our fair-minded leaders the basics of warding large geographical areas in exchange for information as to the Lord Voldemort's whereabouts. I do hope they catch that blackguard, but it appeared they were mainly interested in meeting him on academic matters." He waved a hand. "No matter. Whatever steps they take can be retraced in the event that they should fall against the dark wizard and whomever he has at his command."</p><p>Draco continued to be impressed by his father's ability to present the worst possible news as neutral to good news. If Nott's father had been right about one thing, it was his continued insistence that the war was necessary, and they needed the Dark Lord to lead them. Even his father or any of his peers, as wise as they would be, would ultimately put their children above the magical world. Getting rid of him was a necessary step, of course, but only once most of their enemies were dead, and it was becoming steadily more apparent that there were more enemies than just Albus Dumbledore.</p><p>Rather than being their personal quarries for recourses to use against their enemies, the departments of magical governments were purging them, effectively using blood purism, familial relations, and dark magic as metrics for employment. He supposed a disconnected Slytherin had a chance of getting somewhere in a political career, but would be watched so intently he would be incapable of doing anything to help the Death Eaters. <em>Our only hope is to win the hearts of wizards. When people realize the Ministry is dealing with the Chinese to ward the country to remove the necessity of personal magic, they will cry out for us to save them.</em></p><p>Perhaps a more cautious wizard would say he was placing too much faith in the strength of the human spirit, but the truth was he only trusted the commoners to play their part as much as he trusted an animal to yelp, snarl, or bite when it was being beaten in a corner. Even a bowtruckle would try to preserve itself, the only creature that would fail to do so was a house elf, which was about where the magical governments seemed to want them. Elves were capable of magic, to be sure, but it was rarely judged that they needed to use it.</p><p>The conversation was progressing around him, but Draco had mostly lost interest in it. Resolving to remember it to the effect that he could repeat it later, his mind was still adrift with other concerns. Assuming his father would notice, he expected to be lectured for appearing inattentive later.</p><p>As the meeting concluded and the pair of them left the room, his expectations were deferred.</p><p>"How is school?"</p><p>"I'm managing. I've been away for long enough to get me expelled, but as long as the Dark Lord is the Headmaster-"</p><p>"I expect he will have different priorities than Snape. How are your academics?"</p><p>"Before leaving, I was doing well in all subjects, with the adjustment period counted for what it was."</p><p>"Very well. If for the past three years, you have seen me as a superior officer rather than a father, then I have only the excuse that the magical world is at stake, and our master knows nothing of the love of parents and children. He will put nothing at all above his own objectives, and ours are only part of our dealings with him, bargaining chips for which we must trade the greatest of risks and the harshest of penalties for failure. That you have your own mark is not what makes me proud of you, Draco."</p><p>"I understand, father."</p><p>That conversation was more or less over. What remained was the talk they had been putting off about their plans, but it seemed that would wait even longer. <em>Of course. We never know who might be listening in.</em></p><p>"Draco, you are a lively young man. Have you ever given a thought to marriage? Ravenclaw would be suitable, of course, as we might form an alliance with neutral families..." <em>Tracey wouldn't mention it to anyone, not even Padma- she has more to lose than I- </em>"I recognize, of course, that you may have set your sights on witches further from home-"</p><p>"Precisely, father, I have- well, perhaps you know that I took a liking to one of the Patil girls, but our union would hardly turn an entire subcontinent to the Death Eaters- the east is more of a tipping point. As much as perhaps I denigrate my fellow students at Durmstrang, mine efforts alone prove that they merely wait for the strongest conqueror to appear and follow him to the ends of the earth. Should I seize the school from its current command-"</p><p>"Wizards will remember you had the help of the Headmaster."</p><p>"Truly, yet if he were to present a legitimate reason I have been out of school so long; perhaps even admitting he requested that I free Grindelwald-" There was something of a gleam in his father's eyes. "The students at the very least would not view it as his helping me, but as my helping him, and in that there could be a new sort of nobility to my actions. The Dark Lord appears to intend to keep his identity secret in the present, and freeing Grindelwald is something Karkaroff, a former supporter of his, would support unequivocally, especially when the school has need of some unifying force."</p><p>"You would sooner appear as a servant of another dark wizard?"</p><p>"As long as the Lord Voldemort is concealed and appears to be losing ground, the school would sooner serve another dark wizard, and one they could call their own. I shall no glory lose when the Death Eaters bring him down, and they will, as they will act just ahead of the magical governments, rather I should inherit the school from him- our master may have ordered his release, to be sure, but he is already the Headmaster. I contend for a new position-" He allowed his thoughts to catch up again. "The students at Durmstrang generally believe in might and magic. Blood purists defeating Grindelwald will in their eyes defeat the ideology of the greater good, or perhaps prove purism itself to be the greater good, and my being a clear supporter of purity above all else will transfer the loyalty of the school-"</p><p>"What of Evan? Earlier your letters indicated he was surpassing you in support."</p><p>"Evan is known only for being Karkaroff's favorite. When it is revealed that he was not selected for this mission, even for the reason that he was too important to lose-"</p><p>This conversation, it seemed, would go into the night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Allies and Alloys</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Electrum sighed. He had been asked to go over some memories in the Department, finally trusted with seeing them after having proven himself beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had no problem with the way sensitive information was handled, but it had not been exactly pleasant proving himself.</p><p>Three days ago, he had been asked to kill a man named Macnair, who was accused of being a Death Eater. He remembered asking nothing more than 'where?' and being led to the elevator in the Ministry. Since the destruction of Hogwarts, he had been trying to finish up with his studies, but he had been thankful that his betters decided there were more important tasks for him than sitting in a classroom in the school. He had been going through Auror training as a proof of concept that anyone committed enough could pass, with the hope that other students from the legitimate House of Hufflepuff could pass.</p><p>In the elevator, he learned a bit about the Death Eater's employment history, which made sense, although it unsettled him that the accusation came from a witch who was now a wanted criminal. Despite the probability that she had been planted by Voldemort, he really had not expected her to be capable of killing as many people as she had. He remembered mentally shrugging. The Department most likely had some evidence corroborating the accusation, or they would not be calling him for the execution, and it was really a waste of time thinking about it.</p><p>Electrum killed the prisoner with a fire charm, not wanting to use dark magic as it was associated with blood purism. He explained his reasoning, but it appeared the officials would have preferred a killing curse, but it was none too much trouble, as at least they saved the time incinerating the corpse. Familiar with how executions generally worked and knowledgeable of the wizard's many offenses, it was easy enough to make the decision in his mind, but from time to time he wished the dark wizard could have had a wand on him.</p><p>At any rate, he had been perusing the memories of the interviews with Ebony, noting that before her untimely death at the claws of a werewolf, Supreme Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge had done the same. <em>What did she gain from perusing this? Why could she not find her and ask her in person? </em>Since seeing her at Hogwarts, he expected she had resumed her normal duties as a Department employee, and since seeing her after the castle's destruction, which was inconvenient but ultimately worthwhile, he could only imagine that she had been in the continent. Seeking out Voldemort was basically how they reinterpreted her job after there was no school left to inspect, and since suspected Death Eaters had been making speeches and attending balls in various places across Europe, it seemed like the place to go to find information. Officially, they needed approval from the conference at Ys, but that was almost certain to go through, and once it did no one would particularly mind that they were already conducting investigations outside their countries.</p><p>As he understood the proposal at the conference, the goal was to make 'dark magic in Europe' a jurisdiction, and 'law enforcement in Europe' its owners. For all he knew Ebony might have been at the conference herself; he could be certain some of the people in her inner circle had attended. Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies was something of a celebrity guest.</p><p>Electrum returned to his work.</p><p>Some of the memories he had perused revealed a bit of the history of the Department, like how in the mid eighties after Crouch was moved to a sinecure, some of his people upstairs started to make the Unspeakables and Inspectors more powerful relative to other Ministry employees by cutting down on reporting requirements. The Department of Mysteries had initially been interested in Inspections of Hogwarts for the sake of magical research, which was most of what they had been doing before the war started, and some of the old timers were still into it, but the faction upstairs was making their lives easier and there was public support for continuing the wartime measures while Dumbledore's people insisted on their tired privacy concerns.</p><p>"I was always unsure why the old warlock gave up the war so quickly," he muttered. "He seemed to understand that there were things that needed to be done until the Potters died and everyone acted like it was over."</p><p>Concluding that the former Headmaster was just soft on dark magic and blood purists out of some kind of personal sentimentality, which was also his only explanation for keeping Grindelwald alive, he set about watching the last memory with Ebony in it, which the records indicated Umbridge had seen herself. When the preliminary questions were out of the way, she explained what she discovered on the subject of death.</p><p>"Around fifty years ago, as you know, there was the concern that students could possibly research Horcruxes, which was one of the concerns Professor Slughorn presented to the Department. Perhaps it was not the galleon that broke the dragon's back, but it was the most interesting to us. We promised to obliviate a few of the students who had been asking him questions if he would add his name to the proposal of the Inspections, and ever since then- either out of some insane commitment to magical research or a more anti-purist approach to the elimination of dark magic- we have looked for the books his students must have used. They had to have heard about Horcruxes somewhere."</p><p>"We always thought it would make a fine addition to the Death Room, yes," the interviewer said. "We just never found anything. Ended up assuming whatever brat had a question about it must've overheard something in Knockturn Alley."</p><p>"I doubt any 'brat' could have found them unless exceedingly determined," Ebony agreed. "Within the first few weeks of the school year, I caught Professor Quirrell in the Restricted Section. I thought nothing of it, since he could have been doing research on how to do his new job, but I heard some sort of mechanical clunking and decided to explore the place myself. Adopting the semblance of a Prefect allowed me to bypass the requirement of getting permission to see the books back there."</p><p>"You'd already had the disguise, though."</p><p>"Yes, but before that I assumed my predecessors had gone through the library already. In any case, I was nearly caught by a younger student, but I returned eventually, discovering that there was a hidden section, predating the common use of the undetectable expansion charm. It was a simple trick deduced by reading the spines of books by the same author, sorted out of alphabetical order. A panel moved in the floor, revealing a small array of books which I would estimate had not been touched in a hundred years at least."</p><p>"You decided they were no longer a concern, because no one had read them."</p><p>"Precisely," Ebony responded. "If the Department found them to be of interest, I would have to have some way of smuggling them out. Otherwise, they could wait until the Ministry controlled the school."</p><p>
  <em>I see. The plan was to force their hands; that if they wanted to have access to the books, they would have to go along with the plan to nationalize Hogwarts.</em>
</p><p>It seemed that she would not recite anything she might have read in those books, meaning the next time anyone would have read them was when the Ministry employees combed through the wreckage. Electrum could not imagine what the books said, since he had no idea what a Horcrux was, but since it was supposed to be an addition to the Death Room, he knew where too look if he ever found himself interested. That said, he had better things to do.</p><p>Only a few days ago, he had been in a meeting with Crouch himself. The two of them had not met before, but apparently there was an important matter of discussion and he wanted to speak with the leader of the students. Privately, he disagreed with the Minister on one or two minor things, but did not let that bother him.</p><p>"Good afternoon," the older wizard had said when he came in. He had not realized it would just be the two of them. "I heard you took over for Ebony. Electrum, was it?"</p><p>"None could quite replace her, sir. What was it you wanted to discuss?"</p><p>"You were there when everything went mad at the Triwizard Tournament, I presume?"</p><p>"I was across the stadium from you, but I did hear things by messenger."</p><p>"The substance of it is that the students who are now persons of interest were accusing me of being in two places at once. Did that seem like an odd claim to make?"</p><p>"Yes, I suppose. If you had an accomplice take your place as presiding official to provide an alibi, you might as well have had an accomplice do the job for you."</p><p>"I suspect they did not think of that. I asked the employees surveying the ruin of Hogwarts if they could shed any light on the matter. There was something suspicious about the nature of the accusation. Anyway, they found that there really had been traces of dementors in the area."</p><p>"There could have been a Death Eater pretending to be you."</p><p>"He was pretending to be my son, actually. I lost my son many years ago, and one of the enemy elected to impersonate him, perhaps to discredit me, though it is possible he truly believed himself to be my son."</p><p>"Ah. Are you married, then? Perhaps it has something to do with your wife."</p><p>"Also possible, but I doubt it. My wife never cared for the public eye, and our son did not take after her to where most people would assume they were not related; he looked almost entirely like I did, at least whilst he was alive."</p><p>Electrum frowned to himself, but decided he should probably expect it. <em>The mother would have been the more caring one, though I suppose losing a daughter would be more tragic anyway.</em> He wondered if the blood purists had any such rules about which children were most important, but decided it did not matter. They were losing in all respects, though of course they would not see that. They had a bizarre lack of respect for the inevitable.</p><p>"That Death Eater would have escaped from Azkaban a few years ago."</p><p>"Yes, I suspected that Voldemort would either conduct a breakout or a siege of the prison. The kill on sight policy I introduced has likely already saved hundreds of lives. The wizarding world is grateful that Moody was able to kill Evan Rosier without jumping through any legal hoops. He was resisting arrest, of course, but the Aurors might have gone easier on him if it were not for the policy in effect."</p><p>"Where is Auror Moody, then?" he asked, picking up a pen from the desk. It looked a lot like a muggle fountain pen, which was odd to him, but changes were to be expected with a new government.</p><p>"Retired; apparently the Ministry demonstrates insufficient vigilance. With the reality being that we are aware of most of the wands on this island, we have the Floo Network entirely monitored, and all our employees are regularly screened for blood purism and dark magic, I suspect he was just tired of the work, or perhaps sympathetic to Dumbledore types." Electrum had been screened himself, though it was a bit of a pointless exercise. Essentially, the dark detectors had been modified with the mind arts to reveal blood purist leanings, though they kept having to recalibrate it. Whenever the artefacts said there were no blood purists in a room full of witches and wizards, there had to be someone evading detection, since it was a commonly understood fact that one in five people had been the victim of Death Eaters in some way.</p><p>"I fail to see why. Did you want to see me to retrieve him?" Crouch waved away the notion.</p><p>"It is unlikely you will find him; he might have even fled the country. My concern right now is that there may be former Hogwarts students on the continent."</p><p>"Beauxbatons?"</p><p>"Some of them, yes, but my main concerns are the ones who went to Durmstrang. We have an informant we suspect of playing both sides who tells us that a few former Slytherins were seen in Austria."</p><p>"The Death Eaters were lying about having nothing to do with Grindelwald's release."</p><p>"Almost certainly. The capture of any one of them, or even more concrete information would be the final nail in the coffin."</p><p>"You want us to go after one of them." <em>That could complicate things legally. Not every country in Europe is committed to fighting blood purism.</em></p><p>"A number of students survived the destruction of the school. The interior is being reconstructed, but it is conceivable that a group of impressionable students could take a trip to the continent whilst they are on holiday."</p><p>"Who's our target?"</p><p>"You'll find out when you get a team together. You're not going alone."</p><p>"Very well."</p><p>Electrum sensed that there was no more to the conversation and walked out. <em>Crouch is a busy man. He doesn't have time for protracted discussions on the near future; there are things that need to be done now.</em></p><p>He went to the level where until recently they had the door leading to the school. There was scholarship on the magical health concerns raised with living permanently inside impossible spaces, but the authors of some of the books supporting the idea were blood pursits. The concepts had nothing to do with each other, to be sure, but they had to be morons to believe the world was better off with only pure bloods around.</p><p>"Electrum-" a voice started. He whipped around, refraining from drawing. It was a younger witch, whose name escaped him. "Are you here to help? We should have the place mostly reconstructed soon... not that there're a lot of us left..." <em>It'll be faster to tell the truth.</em></p><p>"I'm looking for a group of students I can take on a mission. We should be able to strike a blow against the Death Eaters."</p><p>"Oh, okay. I was mostly here for an education. I can't do anything unless I graduate. I think they changed the rules so now I can't even cast spells without graduating from an accredited school." The wizard frowned a bit. <em>She's being unusually honest.</em></p><p>"The mission is voluntary, of course. I'll be starting with students who qualify for it."</p><p>"Oh, well make sure they come back alive. We don't have much of a school left as it is, especially after so many of them left last year... and the year before that."</p><p>"Safety will be prioritized."</p><p>"I mean, it's not like it's all your fault. We're going to have to be having children anyway, but when they come out they'll be babies. Is the Ministry going to ask people to reproduce to replace the population? Some of the adults around here have been talking about it."</p><p>"They might do that, but they would only be able to ask the people under their authority. The only way to get muggleborn children is by muggles reproducing, which is out of hour hands." He sighed. "It's not really that important. Some of the Hufflepuffs said the castle felt empty, but that was only a problem because the interior was static.</p><p>"So we just make the school smaller whenever there are fewer students? Won't we just forget about how many students there were in the first place?"</p><p>"Of course, but that would be an irrelevant historical detail."</p><p>Electrum left the younger witch to go into the wreckage of the school to see about recruits. It was unfortunate, perhaps, that their lack of people made it harder to find people who could fight blood purists, but incentivizing wizarding families to reproduce was only more likely to create more of the enemy. He had a suspicion he had just been talking to a pure blood, or something close to that. It was also unfortunate that not everyone was up to date on dangerous dialogue.</p><p>"Hopkins," he said, finding a young wizard with a penchant for explosive charms. He was indirectly responsible for the destruction of Hogwarts, which was ultimately a good thing, a substantial blow against the Death Eaters, and by consequence he was basically good. "How would you like to accompany me on an unsanctioned mission against the blood purists?"</p><p>"Unsanctioned?" he asked, looking uncertain. <em>I would have thought he would be excited. </em>Presently, he was levitating desks and chairs into place, if not with the greatest sense of care.</p><p>"Crouch is in favor of it, of course, but the Ministry would be violating international law by sending Hit Wizards after our targets in other countries. It is only a matter of time before the decision of the conference at Ys has unanimous approval, but there would be records of it if our government gave the order before the change took effect. We have to learn whether or not the Death Eaters had anything to do with Grindelwald's release."</p><p>"Well, that sounds like a good reason, but if it's not sanctioned... then it's undermining the Ministry's authority. I can't be a part of anything that isn't-"</p><p>"I know you're on a list as a dangerous element, because you tried to knock Hogwarts down with Aurors inside, but your record should be expunged if you go along with this."</p><p>"Expunged? Why would Crouch expunge it? If it's not sanctioned, he'll hang us out to dry."</p><p>"That's why we can't get caught. Think about it," he said as he walked off. <em>There has to be someone else I can ask. Losing Hopkins would not be a substantial misfortune, but he does not have the proper sense of necessity, else he would have agreed immediately.</em></p><p>"Jones?" he asked, seeing a younger witch expanding books that had been shrunken. Her given name was Megan, but he had not the right to use it. "Would you like to go on a mission to combat the Death Eaters?"</p><p>"Of- of course," she answered quickly. "Um- when do we leave? How long do I have?"</p><p>"I'm not sure; I still have to get a team together. I probably have to look into recruiting people my age, though they're harder to find." Most of the Hufflepuffs in his graduating class had already found employment, quite a few with the Ministry, but some had gone abroad. "Crouch has not told me all the details yet, because he knows that if I couldn't get a team together, I would go alone."</p><p>"Okay, well you can put me down for going- unless the Minister says that there can only be so many, and you find other people more qualified." She quickly went back to work on fixing the place up. <em>We could use her skills in Transfiguration. McGonagall was not exactly the fairest, but she was a competent teacher of her discipline.</em> He remembered trying to get her to counteract Snape several years ago, back when they still cared about House points. <em>Not counteracting him by taking points from the Slytherins made her responsible for what he was doing, and equally unfair by consequence.</em></p><p>He could keep going through the school looking for more recruits, and he would probably have to do just that, but it was more important to draw up a plan. Someone his age was really only going to go along with a trip to the continent if he knew what they were going to accomplish and how, and that was only going to happen when Crouch provided him with more details. <em>He has to have some kind of lead on a Death Eater who might be easy to capture, or maybe just a well-connected family member. </em>Many of them were married, he knew, and their wives frequently arranged social functions. Now that they were in Europe meeting foreign dignitaries, they probably felt more important than ever before.</p><p>"What I need is a method. If I don't have a target, or a place, I need a method," he said to himself. Ebony had been required to learn how to make portkeys as part of her training as an Inspector and she passed some of the knowledge on to him when they were in school together. Since then he had committed himself to learning it, though he had never told her anything about it. He would never impress her, after all.</p><p>"<em>Portus," </em>he incanted, the pen he had picked off the Minister's desk glowing momentarily. He had an idea, and he was already on top of it.</p>
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<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Shore Leave</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Apparently Hannah had told someone that she would greet him by running up to him and throwing her arms around him. As much as he would have liked to meet her like that, he really just stunned her and apparated. It was a little too good to be true, and there was the chance that she was someone else in disguise. In seconds the two of them were in the south again, and as soon as she woke up she was crying. Luna said she hardly needed to use the mind arts to confirm her identity, but she left them alone with little more than a scowl. <em>I didn't know I'd hurt her this badly... she had to understand that-</em></p><p>It was about then that she told him why she had planned to run up to him, not bothering to remove the tears from her eyes, since they would only be replaced as quickly. He put his arms around her and told her that he was sorry, and there was no one else; Lovegood was a friend and he trusted her because she kept the group together. Telling her a little about the small company of students, she nodded along and eventually apologized for not trusting him and coming up with such a silly way of verifying that he had been faithful, because it would have looked strange to anyone, but it only prompted him to apologize himself. He looked away.</p><p>"No, it's my fault for not seeing it for what it was. I haven't seen anything that... real in months. I can't tell how many of my allies are lying to me, because they're not like you or Hermione or Terry."</p><p>"What happened to them?"</p><p>"Hermione is back from China. Apparently she hasn't heard back from the people who took her here, so she's staying for the time being. We lost Terry. We're almost certain he's dead."</p><p>"What happened?"</p><p>"He got captured by the Death Eaters. We know they don't normally kill kids, but their master will, and he'll know they picked him up. They prob'ly tortured information out of him until he died."</p><p>"Why didn't you think the same thing had happened to me?" <em>Ministry has a prison, unlike Voldemort. </em>He had planned the excuse because he knew the question was coming. They were alone, however, alone together in one of the upper rooms of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, sitting on the edge of a musty old bed with their backs touching.</p><p>"I couldn't give up hope, not if I still had a bit left. I... I love you, Hannah." He felt her arms go around him from behind.</p><p>"I don't care how... wrong things are between us. I've wanted to hear that from you for so long..." He rounded and looked into her eyes. These were a different variety of tears entirely. "I... however far you want to go- I... don't make me say it..."</p><p>Ron pushed her back on the bed, pinning her arms above her head and kissing her. He could not have said why he did it or what kind of resistance he would have expected, but she seemed receptive to his assertiveness if it could be called that. She was wearing muggle clothes, so he took her shirt off and allowed her the use of her hands to help. He could see her expression shift from amusement over their mutual inexperience to something unrecognizable as he touched her bare skin, but the truth was he was just taking what he wanted. The witch's hand clutched the shirt on his shoulder and he removed it without hesitation. They resumed kissing, perhaps not sure what else to do, and he dragged her to the middle of the bed, her skirt not giving him sufficient access from below.</p><p>Hannah started to visibly hesitate. She looked at him uncertainly and he held her for a moment and asked if she were alright.</p><p>"We're... doing it again, we're not thinking, just...moving. I mean, I... love you, I think... I just can't help but think that we're just using each other as stress relievers." He hung his head. "It's not... it's not entirely your fault, it's just..."</p><p>The door opened behind him. He fumbled for his wand, but it closed immediately and whoever was on the other side ran off. There was a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>"I don't think he saw... anything."</p><p>"I'll be straightening him out anyway," Ron decided. "Some of us were raised to knock." <em>She's prob'ly right. I was between her and the door. </em>"Might as well get up if we're not in the mood," he muttered, frustrated, grabbing his shirt. He knew he had no right to be upset with her, since it was his fault too, but he could not see why they were unable to just- not- think about it and... let nature take its course.</p><p>"Who was that?" Hannah asked.</p><p>"Could've been Harper or Macmillan. I reckon I could get Lovegood to check." She shook her head.</p><p>"It doesn't really matter. I know you were, well, excited, but... that was... not the only issue. I've been feeling terrible about something."</p><p>"Is it that thing about the school?"</p><p>"I really was responsible. I could not tell you how many people I killed, and just so that I could escape."</p><p>"That's a good enough reason. What if they were all standing in your way? Wouldn't you be willing to get out anyway?"</p><p>"Maybe... I would have sneaked past them before that, though." She hung her head. "I don't know if it even turned out to be the most effective thing. Maybe if I just tried to walk out like nothing was wrong, no one would have noticed until the next day."</p><p>"Well, then there would have been more people out searching for us."</p><p>"I feel like some of them were just innocent bystanders." She was putting her shirt on again.</p><p>"The people who wanted to be innocent bystanders left in like second or third year," he argued. <em>Am I just trying to make her feel better? Is that my job?</em></p><p>Nothing was said for a minute. Ron still wanted nothing more than to go back to what they were doing, but it was not going to happen. <em>Might as well let her meet Hermione. It's been a while since they've seen each other.</em></p><p>Leading her downstairs, they looked happy to see each other, but it was not as if they ran to each other. <em>Might be she just learned her lesson.</em></p><p>"Is it okay if we talk somewhere?" the Ravenclaw asked her.</p><p>"That would work," Hannah responded, leading her back upstairs. It seemed unlikely they would talk about him, though that was what came to mind immediately. <em>Whatever. They won't ever tell me what it was they discussed and I'm not about to ask Luna. She prob'ly wouldn't tell me either.</em></p><p>He liked the idea of being able to talk with people in private; it was just that he was not accustomed to it.</p><p>The discussion the adults were having mostly had to do with getting the Philosopher's Stone back, which was what he remembered suggesting almost a year earlier. As long as Voldemort had it, he could come back to life and have as much gold as he could possibly want. McGonagall was presently dismissing Lupin's question about using the Stone to bring other people back to life.</p><p>"I am afraid that would not work. Lord Voldemort was not truly gone when he used the Stone to restore his body. All there is left of Headmaster Dumbledore, for example, is a portrait, and though Hannah Abbot may be with us to explain her theories regarding using a portrait to restore the sanity of one whose mind has been destroyed, the most we could expect to create from a portrait and the Elixir of Life is a monster, which may well be a cure worse than the disease itself."</p><p>"Where is it?" Ron asked. "The portrait-"</p><p>"When I say that we have it, Mr. Weasley, perhaps I should say that it exists. Professor Snape was the last to have it in his possession."</p><p>"You know it exists, though."</p><p>"Yes, I have seen it and consulted it at length. I regret that I could not have ascended to the position of Headmaster for your fourth year, but the portrait informed me that I had not been chosen, either by the school or by my predecessor. It told me of dark magic, and of the theories the late Professor Dumbledore had regarding Voldemort's preservation of his own tortured soul. There is only one theoretically possible explanation."</p><p>Everyone looked in her direction, though today 'everyone' was somewhat limited. It was just three underage wizards, a witch, and Lupin. Everyone else was away on some sort of mission or dead. <em>Prob'ly got a few sleepers who haven't been traced back to us yet.</em></p><p>"Voldemort's soul must have been tethered to the world by a Horcrux."</p><p>"What's that?"</p><p>"It is the darkest magic in existence-" McGonagall started back.</p><p>"Wait a tick; I think Hermione should hear this."</p><p>"Perhaps you are correct, Mr. Weasley. I see no need to repeat myself." He got up and went upstairs, knocking loudly so that the others would hear. It seemed unlikely either witch had her shirt off, but they were almost certainly discussing something private. <em>Even if they're not, they shut the door for a damn reason. </em>Whatever it was had expired, as the door opened.</p><p>"Have you ever heard of a Horcrux?" he asked.</p><p>"I have," Hannah answered. "What do you want to know?"</p><p>"Well, McGonagall's talking about them, so it seemed better that everyone was on the same page," he said, the tips of his ears going a bit red. They went downstairs together.</p><p>"Ah. I hope you two had a productive discussion," the old Transfiguration teacher said. "Miss Lovegood assures me she did not overhear any of it."</p><p>"What were you saying about Horcruxes?" the Hufflepuff witch asked. "Did you know that Slughorn heard Voldemort was looking for research on them when he was in school?" Ron knew that their enemy had attended school as a young man named Tom Riddle, but it was weird to think of them as the same person.</p><p>"That was the late Headmaster's theory, yes. He was concerned that Professor Slughorn might have told him everything he needed to know, but apparently he swore to the contrary that he did everything in his power to keep his students from finding out about them."</p><p>"Did he tell you about that?" Hermione asked.</p><p>"Yes, I made use of our last year at Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall explained.</p><p>"Well, that doesn't make any sense," the Gryffindor objected. "If Slughorn never told him anything about Horcruxes, how could he still be around? Was he not really dead or something?"</p><p>"No, I can assure you Professor Snape discovered the body and could be quite sure that it was his former master." He knitted his eyebrows. "Directly after that, Professor Dumbledore arrived and Lord Voldemort was pronounced dead. No amount of careful enchantments could have fooled his efforts to confirm the identity of the burned body. He told me he did not wish for the information to get out, but there was some sort of talisman around the neck that might have preserved his life for an instant while he died of his own rebounded curse."</p><p>"None of the other bodies were burned?" Ron asked. He was trying to get a better idea of what had happened, now that his random guess was proven incorrect. He had understood the house burned down to its foundation.</p><p>"The bodies of James and Lily Potter were moved before the fire reached the lower floor. It appeared that they were caught off guard and tried to fight, but both died of killing curses. The baby's cradle, where the fire started, was reduced to ashes. Professor Dumbledore surmised that, failing to kill the infant with a curse, Lord Voldemort used a fire charm, and that he would not have cared whether or not the fire spread after that."</p><p>"Both of them were..." Something seemed off about it. If Voldemort were coming, and they were already in hiding, they would not have believed they could take him in a fight. It would make sense if there was someone else who could get their son out of there while they were distracting him, since they had to know his target was their son- "Why did they know he was after the baby?" he asked.</p><p>"That would be explained by the prophecy. Both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter were candidates, but it could only refer to one, not both."</p><p>"Is that why the Lestranges went after the Longbottom family when they were in hiding?" he asked.</p><p>"Most likely; that was what Professor Snape explained to us after the killing was over," McGonagall said. "I suspect you see something wrong with the picture of James and Lily being discovered downstairs when their son was upstairs."</p><p>"You're not the only one," Lupin interjected. "My friends were both brave, to a fault, even, and that was how Dumbledore remembered them. He swore to me up and down that they would have preferred to die fighting and leave their son to whoever would take him, that they resisted going into hiding in the first place." He sighed. "At the same time, I couldn't see it. I wanted to know where their wands were, but apparently James did not have his on him."</p><p>"He could have dropped it," Hannah suggested.</p><p>"Yes, he could have, but it was never recovered. It burned to a crisp, I assume. The same was the case for Lily. Dumbledore told me I was personally involved in the investigation, and I was chasing shadows anyway." He looked around. "This was not to say he put it in those exact words, but suffice to say he believed we had the circumstances correct, and everyone with his or her head on straight agreed with him. I thought I was going to make it past that point, but that was when we learned about Sirius."</p><p>"That was incorrect, though," Hermione said, baiting for clarification.</p><p>"Most likely. Pettigrew still being alive and his actions since fleeing from Azkaban have suggested that he was telling the truth." There was a knock at the door.</p><p>"Open up, damn you; you're my house."</p><p>The door opened and Sirius Black walked in, followed by Charlie. In truth, Ron was only guessing the man's identity, but there were few people left in the world who could claim to own Number 12 Grimmauld Place.</p><p>"Afternoon, Ronald. I hear you've been busy."</p><p>"Not as much as I would've liked. You're not staying, are you?"</p><p>"No, I know where I'm needed. Chances are, Sirius will be coming back with me. We just had some news to deliver."</p><p>"Anthony?"</p><p>"I hope you're happier than I am that he's dead. It wasn't an execution; it was a matter of course." Ron shook his head. <em>He was just running at that point. Could've killed someone else, so it's prob'ly better this way, but he really should've been tried. </em>Of course, that was impossible.</p><p>"Not your only news, is it?"</p><p>"No. We were right in thinking Regulus was helping him. Doesn't really matter what their endgame was," Charlie explained, sitting down with them. Sirius was calling out for some elf. <em>Haven't seen any here yet. Could've been hiding or something.</em></p><p>"Were you able to discover anything about the Death Eaters from him?" McGonagall asked.</p><p>"There's a good reason they're all afraid of their master. Most of them seem to think he won't die if you tried to kill him. Regulus doesn't think so. He was pretty close to Slughorn when he was in Hogwarts and he got this bizarre story out of him one time when they were drinking Steaming Stout. I think it happened at a party when everyone else was gone."</p><p>"Did he tell him about Horcruxes?"</p><p>"Enough, yeah. Don't really understand how they work, myself, but he swore up and down that he didn't have anything against Riddle at the time, but he thought things were getting out of hand, so when he asked about Horcruxes, he said they were dangerous and not worth looking into- must've known enough about them to be able to convincingly tell him it wasn't worth the risk."</p><p>"What was the risk?"</p><p>"I'm not sure. He didn't tell Regulus much about how they worked, but what Sirius figures is that they'll keep you around if you die."</p><p>"He must have had some other method of surviving," McGonagall decided. "I had thought that Horcruxes were the only way to tether one's soul to the physical world."</p><p>"Excuse me, Professor... the physical world?" Hermione asked.</p><p>"Yes, it is believed that whether or not there is another world, souls cannot remain in the physical world. You may have learned of it in an advanced Divination class had you any interest in the subject." <em>I mean I didn't either. It was just easy to get through it most of the time.</em></p><p>McGonagall was talking about theories again, and it was getting a bit over his head, so he figured it was better to take a break and see if anyone else managed to understand it better. Sirius could not find his elf, which raised some questions, but he seemed to care the least of all.</p><p>"You said his name was Kreacher?" Hermione asked. "What does he look like?"</p><p>"If you'd seen him, you'd know. Well, he'd have probably announced himself. It doesn't really matter. Charlie and I need to be in contact with the Magicians of Light. There's a chance that they can help us, but they don't do firecalls."</p><p>Nothing was said for a moment. It seemed like everyone under magical majority except Hermione still had to process everything that was being discussed, so it was no surprise that she still had questions while he wanted to get out of there, if only for a moment. It had been ages since he had seen his older brother, and he understood that Fred and George had been sent with some of the Black fortune to Australia, where they hoped to make more resources for the Order. They had struggled for a while with it feeling like a cowardly thing to do, but the truth of it was they were clever inventors who worked well together, and opening a store was the best way of keeping themselves afloat while they worked. Try as they might, they could no longer operate openly in Britain because the Weasley family was on a list, thanks to him.</p><p>"Have you seen Bill at all?" Ron asked his brother when he got the chance.</p><p>"We made a stop in Egypt before we came back here. He told us we should really be setting up over there, or possibly in Ireland, because the whole island is going to be warded to keep us from Apparating out." He hung his head, having heard of the plan.</p><p>"The Ministry knows they've got us trapped like rats, and if it came to a fight, they'd win. They're forcing a fight by cutting off our escape." Charlie nodded.</p><p>"If it makes you feel any better, we did the same with dragons sometimes. Mum and Dad told Bill they've all the popular support they need, they just have to start killing us before we start going after them." <em>Damn. If I had a big enough unit, we could have been picking off Aurors or something, at the very least, but they would have used that to say there were still Death Eaters. </em>He had some idea they had already killed Frank and Alice Longbottom for that very reason, but also because they were sitting ducks. It was a simple matter of creating a legitimate reason to move them to a ward by themselves and being done with it.</p><p>"Have you heard anything about Dean?" he asked. Apparently the twins saw him once or twice before they moved. His plan of going after soft targets had to have succeeded at least once, if the corpses of Mrs. Crabbe and a handful of rustic wizards meant anything. They had not been reported, of course, they were discovered weeks later by either Sturgis Podmore or Elphias Doge.</p><p>"The <em>Prophet</em>'s got no way of spinning what he's doing, so they're just bombarding everyone with useless information in case anyone does find out about the murders he's committed," Charlie said, his expression grim. "This is all second-hand, from Dad, but really they've got no choice but to kill him." Ron nodded.</p><p>"I reckon I know where I'm going next."</p>
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<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Shi</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With Ron's brother gone and he owner of the house gone with him, there were questions raised in Hermione's mind. Going to school in China, she had intended to learn a lot about warding, and she had, but she also learned about statecraft, which basically served as the justification for a lot of the school's and the ministers' actions. Everyone seemed to see himself or herself as part of a larger whole, and a larger effort of cultural, social, magical, and political preservation. The idea of destroying Crouch's government, therefore, made her think about what should replace it.</p><p>It was not, in the least, the only thing on her mind. McGonagall explained that as the theory went, a Horcrux was an inanimate object containing a little piece of its creator's soul. To create one, a wizard needed split his soul, possibly by committing murder. She doubted her own soul had been split by the person she killed, though to the present he had never truly left her dreams.</p><p>"How does the soul fragment travel from the caster's body to the intended object?" she asked.</p><p>"That is a difficult question to answer. The books would have described the dark charm that tether a soul to an unnatural host."</p><p>"An unnatural host, Professor?"</p><p>"Human bodies are considered perfect hosts for the soul, after that there are animals, but a corpse, for example, is an unfit host, being an inanimate object." She recalibrated her understanding of Inferi to consider their lack of a soul. "Placing one's immortal soul in a living thing, however, would be a poor decision as it can not only move around and think for itself, it will eventually die."</p><p>"So a split piece of soul does not normally make a Horcrux without the use of the charm?" she asked.</p><p>"No, there would be nothing to take it to a suitable host. Without a host it effectively ceases to be. I presume a host could be transfigured or conjured, as living animals can be procured in such a way, but any dark wizard with the intent to survive any length of time would learn the charm." <em>Right. An inanimate object is really your only shot at sticking around forever.</em></p><p>"Suppose Professor Slughorn was telling the truth. Why would Voldemort not go out of his way to study Horcruxes and create them anyway? I should hardly think one word of caution against a measure of securing his immortality..."</p><p>"There is a theory, and I know not whether my colleague would have been made aware of it, that the self is the continuity of memory." Hermione nodded. She had been through that argument before. "A Horcrux may preserve the soul of the caster, and the soul would very much represent the self, but the piece of the soul in the object only contains the self up to the point of its creation. Theoretically, the soul fragment in possession of an object without a mind of its own may take on a mind of its own, and preserve itself at all costs."</p><p>"Voldemort might have been afraid of duplicating himself, then," she reasoned. Looking around the table, it seemed everyone else was done with the conversation, not that she could blame them. "His duplicates would know too much about him, and may even have reason to work against him."</p><p>She could imagine inanimate objects suddenly being given souls would object to their current situation. Not content to be treated like objects, they would most likely try to get out of that scenario. Professor McGonagall seemed to imply they could do things, and though it seemed unlikely they could grow legs, with a soul fragment and memories up to a certain point, it stood to reason they would have something resembling magical ability. <em>With only a soul, though, what could they do? Possess living things? The ghosts at Hogwarts could at least hold a conversation.</em></p><p>Hermione decided it was better not to rule out more dramatic abilities enshrined in any Horcruxes that might have been created, with or without the books necessary. They contained, after all, pieces of Voldemort's soul. <em>Fortunately, I can distract myself with an argument with Ron.</em></p><p>Marching upstairs, she knocked on the door, though it was not at all likely that he and Hannah were doing anything in there. Unfortunately, he had been basically right about the need to get the Stone, but she was willing to bet he still had no idea how to go about that. If he had changed his plans to prioritize going after the Ministry, that raised a new set of questions.</p><p>"Hi, Hermione," the Hufflepuff witch said as she came in. They were sitting next to each other, probably just talking. She wondered how many awkward conversations they had made themselves hold. "Do you think there's any way we could find Voldemort's Horcrux?" she asked. "I've been bouncing some ideas off Ron, but..."</p><p>"No, we really don't know that he made one, or if he did he made it without any instruction, so we would have no idea when he got to work on it. If we killed him and took the Stone back, he would at least be less able to stop us from looking."</p><p>"That's what Ron said,"</p><p>"I also said that we can't leave yet. If anyone's read the interview, I reckon we've got a fair chance of getting more people on our side." The Ravenclaw witch hung her head a moment. Having argued against the idea that they should be recruiting, she expected she remembered better than most when Terry admitted there was something to it. <em>Terry...</em></p><p>"I think you're right about that," she said quietly. "If we get so much as twenty people, it would give us a huge advantage. Against Crouch, though, you would only be wasting your time." The Gryffindor looked like he wanted to object, but let her continue. "As long as we haven't done anything against the Death Eaters, we'll never gain public support, even by joining the order. Saying that we're against both sides means we need to work against both sides." She sighed a little. "I haven't been reading the <em>Prophet, </em>because I've been away, but I would not be surprised to find that they have written a story about how we helped Draco steal the Stone for Voldemort in first year,"</p><p>"Then we'll get it back," Ron said. "We'll need to use whatever you and Terry were making up if we're to have any hope of getting past him."</p><p>Hermione contained the more pessimistic response she was about to utter regarding the effectiveness of deploying magical creatures from the spirit world as a mechanism of killing a powerful dark wizard, but he was right if his expectations were limited to a distraction. <em>If anything, it will at least interest him. He most likely does not think he needs the Stone at this point, because he would not want to be dependent on it. </em>Her understanding of the character of Voldemort was limited, but he had been controlling one of her teachers for about a year, so there was that.</p><p>"What do we do after that, then?" she asked, getting to the heart of the matter. "Suppose Voldemort dies and the last threat to Crouch's government-"</p><p>"He's not a threat to them, though. He's done nothing against them. It seems like everyone's waiting for him to make his daring counterattack, but it's prob'ly not going to happen. He wanted Hogwarts to stay up, right? Well, now that it's fallen, how do we know he's not done with the whole bloody island?" The bushy haired witch sighed. <em>We still haven't reached the point.</em></p><p>"The rest of the wizarding world will not be safe for his followers when the resolution from the conference at Ys goes into effect. His only hope of not pitting himself against the entire world is attacking Crouch before Britain is cut off from the continent with the wards, and then he just has to hope that it makes everyone else too afraid to go after him and his followers. Ultimately, his problem is that he just keeps pressing on, never compromising, never deciding that enough is enough, and eventually it's going to kill him. Anyway, the Ministry is aware that his only chance is a direct strike against them, which is why they've taken so many steps to secure the country. Both sides have said that Britain is the tipping point of the conflict for the past thirty years, if not longer-"</p><p>"The conflict has three sides, Hermione," the Gryffindor objected. "Once we go after Voldemort, then we only have two. Everyone else against the Order. Terry always said I had too much faith in people, but that's not really it. The people might be rats, but the fact of the matter is that when a rat's cornered, it's got no choice but to fight. No matter how powerful a government makes itself, it can't make people lay down and die, it has to start killing them."</p><p>They had had that conversation, she understood. A corrupt government would not enact any of its more objectionable plans without first removing the means for popular resistance, allowing it to kill citizens with impunity. Killing them, however, would be a net loss as long as they were employed and mostly law-abiding. <em>People's lives have value, even to tyrants. What doesn't have value is virtually anything else. As long as the citizens are alive, working, and not killing themselves or each other, the state can survive.</em></p><p>"Fine," she said. "Fine. We hope for some kind of popular rebellion. What happens after that?" He shrugged.</p><p>"That's up to the people, not us. Just because we're throwing out the old system-"</p><p>"We can't throw out the old one without-"</p><p>"Yeah, we can. Basically anything would be better than Crouch."</p><p>"We'd be responsible for everything that happened after we-"</p><p>"I'm fine with being responsible for that. Might be the people aren't really familiar with governing themselves. I really don't have a damn clue what they'll do, prob'ly just listen to the <em>Prophet</em> and vote for whoever was lined up for a replacement at a general assembly. If that happens, it's beyond saving. The three of us wouldn't represent the land or its people, we'd just be rouge terrorists killing the leadership of what was basically already a foreign country." He sighed. "Can't tell you how many wars were over 'fore they got started. Don't think anyone can, there've been more wars in history and caveman days than there're stars in the sky. There was a historian named Yissur, had to be one of the first people in the world studying Transfiguration, and basically his little kingdom was surrounded by threats. They never knew when someone was going to attack them, but if one little kingdom got them right after they'd fought another, that'd be it for them. Their city would be destroyed, women and children taken as slaves, witches and wizards stoned, and the only thing they could do to get out of that was get stronger."</p><p>"They got stronger by attacking the other kingdoms," Hannah guessed after a pause.</p><p>"Pretty much. Yissur did the Arithmancy and they had a one part in ten of tossing each one of them, except this little one that was about one part in six. They got a bit more land area out of it, rustics spread out and helped the muggles farm, and the food went toward the military. The other kingdoms were a bit more afraid of them, but they attacked anyway. It was pretty interesting, to me, how they dragged out the conflict to run the other bastards out of steam, but they ended up living long enough to get flattened by the Persian Empire. Wasn't really anything they could've done, since surrendering would have meant everyone would be sold or killed anyway."</p><p>Hermione did not know whether her friend was being optimistic or the exact opposite. She had an odd memory of trying to cut a hole in the Trace wards in that apartment in the normal part of London, back when they were still together. At the time, it always seemed like he knew what he would have them do was impossible, and he would bemoan the circumstance, but he never seemed to shrink from the idea.</p><p><em>He answered my question by not answering the question. Whatever government comes after Crouch's, it will not be our responsibility, or we would just be usurping tyrants. </em>She had heard of provisional governments, of course, and it was possible they or the Order would have a hand in that, but it would complicate matters more. For one thing, if this was to be a legitimate popular rebellion, it would have to be an insurrection of the people against the state, not one group against a specific faction of the state. <em>I have to ask if we have any more deep-cover agents in the Ministry. We would have to clear them out of the way before we can declare the rebellion.</em></p><p>Leaving Ron and Hannah to what she presumed to be an awkward conversation, she remembered walking in on them. She had not seen much, and a quick scan of their surface thoughts as they came down the stairs revealed they thought it was Harper or Macmillan, but that only made things slightly less awkward for her. In her conversation with the Hufflepuff witch, she confessed to seeing them, stipulating that she could not see much of her chest as there was someone on top of her, but she only sighed and said it was fine.</p><p>"If anything, I should be apologizing," she had said. "We had this... stupid, well, arrangement last year where I would tell you, and Ron would tell Terry. We literally never did it. I don't think either of us wanted it to be out there, to have you two think of us like that, or whatever else. I think I hoped that it would make things less weird, because we could tell he liked you..." The Ravenclaw witch wanted to dash her head against something again. "I had never thought I would be doing that sort of thing at fourteen. If you asked first year, I might have said I would be kicked out and living on Diagon Alley or brewing love potions- I might have even guessed I would be a werewolf, but... with everything that happened, I don't think we saw even a quarter of it coming. We were stressed and we needed an outlet."</p><p>"Ron needed an outlet," Hermione joked, trying to lighten things for some reason. She could not bring herself to finish it, though.</p><p>"Right, and I needed a plug," Hannah guessed. "We never got to anything like that. There was always something that happened and we would stop, then have an awkward conversation later."</p><p>That was about where they were summoned to go downstairs.</p><p>Thinking of her friend's idea of going after Dean and seeing if they could get him to go on the Stone retrieval mission as she went, she decided it at least had promise. It would strike a more effective blow against Voldemort than anything he had been doing so far, and theoretically he was good enough in a fight to give them a chance if they were caught. Adding numbers to their campaign would not take away enough of their ability to stay hidden that she would throw it out entirely.</p><p>She found Professor McGonagall, which returned her thoughts to the present, as always.</p><p>"Excuse me?" she asked, seeing she was looking over a massive book.<em> I never like to be interrupted whilst reading. </em>"Earlier you made reference to a prophecy, one that seems to make a target out of Neville. Is that why I haven't heard of his whereabouts?"</p><p>"Yes, Professor Dumbledore made a number of plans contingent on his untimely demise regarding Mr. Longbottom." Hermione could have sworn she caught a smile. <em>Why, though? </em>"I am afraid that I cannot tell you exactly where he is, however, as you would likely recruit him for your plan to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone." Her eyes widened.</p><p>"Have you been-"</p><p>"It <em>was</em> only a guess, Miss Granger. I had surmised that you and your friends, perhaps Mr. Weasley most of all, would continue to feel guilty about losing it in the first place. Rest assured, when first years are taking it upon themselves to rescue valuable artefacts from the clutches of dark wizards, it was the world that failed them. Our late Headmaster had suspected that Lord Voldemort was after the Stone, and he knew it was not safe in Gringotts. Moving it to Hogwarts, he expected to catch Professor Quirrell stuck on the last trial, but the Inspectors delayed for him long enough to keep him from finding out when it was successfully stolen. He checked every night around midnight to see if it remained, and the facsimile with which his old enemy replaced the Stone fooled him."</p><p>She wanted to say there was nothing that could have been done. Another part of her wanted to say that as long as Voldemort existed, no mechanism of bringing him back to full power should have ever been allowed, but she knew that was unreasonable. <em>So nothing reasonable could have been done.</em></p><p>"Ron seemed to believe the Order would attempt to stop us."</p><p>"The Order is essentially powerless to stop you, without a school from which to remove you. His brothers told of us his ambitious plans, and if I am to admit it, I had hoped you would make him see sense, and for a while it seems you did, by refusing to take part in them. Understand that I value both rules and valor, Miss Granger, and that these ideals do not contradict each other. Your friend is likely discovering that giving orders has granted him a new perspective, that of the leader, and he realizes now if not before that it is not one to be envied, and requires greater courage of him than he has ever demonstrated."</p><p>Hermione nodded.</p><p>"Terry was our leader last year," she explained.</p><p>"Forgive me if I speak out of turn, or if I unintentionally speak ill of your House, but Mr. Boot was the minister of your little gang, not its leader." The Ravenclaw witch pursed her lips. She supposed Ron had been instrumental in the planning for the duels, and they all really did look up to him, in a way.</p><p>"Are you saying I should have stayed with him and helped him recover the Stone?"</p><p>"No, it would have been better to talk sense into him, but I suppose your background is a little different from what I had hoped. When I heard you were looking around on the train for Longbottom's toad, I remember thinking to myself that it would be nice to have you in my House. I assumed I would be getting him too, of course. The greater part of all students at Hogwarts followed their parents." There was a pause.</p><p>"I'm sorry, but... what was the point of having Houses?" she asked. <em>There were always a ton of different explanations in my mind, but it always seemed like other things divided us more than House loyalty, except for with the Hufflepuffs.</em></p><p>"Originally, of course, it was because the Founders selected the students who would one day join them under their banners, but you might have guessed that from the banners with eagles and lions. In those days each of them would make a bid for a student if he or she were interested, and the student would have the final say. Because we do not tell children about the Sorting before they arrive, they often do not realize they have a choice, and I expect many a boy or girl has ended up in whatever House the hat said was the most appropriate, even if it led to parting with friends. There was a tiny chance that we might end up with all the students going into one House, so the previous Headmaster decided to start the tradition of concealing the mechanism of Sorting."</p><p>"So it was all just a tradition? It was all because that was the way we had always done it?"</p><p>"No, though I value traditions for their own sake, I have not been the Headmaster of the school for its entire existence. To respect the wishes of the Founders is to reward them for engendering the greatest learning institution this island has ever seen. I find, simply, that students seem to learn the best when they have friends, and that grouping them on common values is the easiest way of ensuring they will form lasting friendships with each other. It is a rare thing indeed that a group of students from all four Houses forms, and if I may give my opinion, it is something to be treasured."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0032"><h2>32. Dangerous Monsters and Where to Find Them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Only minutes ago, Ron had apparated her to a strange castle. They were in Scotland again; she could feel it, but it was to the north of wherever Hogwarts was located. The castle also looked substantially different. <em>It's still standing, for one thing.</em></p><p>Hearing about the loss of the school had been beyond devastating. There were times she wished that she and her friends could have fought, because if it came to a fight on the Quidditch pitch, there would at least be enough people who did not want the school to go down that they would be able to fight off those who did. If there was one person in the Ministry school she would not be sad if she inadvertently killed, it was Hopkins.</p><p>"What is this place?"</p><p>"It's the main Bulstrode property, I think."</p><p>"Is Bulstrode here?"</p><p>"Think his wife is. That's enough for Dean." Hannah looked around. She had more questions, like why Ron thought this was the time and place to wait for their old acquaintance to show up. At the same time, there was something more pressing.</p><p>"I think we need Hermione here. She would be able to find him more quickly." He sighed, but disappeared with a pop. <em>What? It's not as if he hated her. </em>In any case, though, the fact that he went to get her meant that he recognized the advantage of bringing her along. He reappeared a minute or so later.</p><p>"Why do you think this is Dean's next target?" the Ravenclaw was asking as soon as she appeared.</p><p>"It's what I'd do. I don't think Malfoy has any other friends with relatives left on this island. Can't rule out that he's moved on to a different island, I suppose, but if we don't find him staking out the place, we could always get something out of the lady of the house."</p><p>Hermione waved her wand over the ward boundary, inspecting what the castle had in the way of defenses. She let out an awkward sort of chuckle. Hannah looked over at Ron to see if he was getting any of what they were seeing and he shook his head.</p><p>"The warding is out of date," she explained eventually. "Contrasting with ancient spells, ancient warding is pretty easy for most wardens to break, since it has been available for study this entire time." Laying down a handful of Chinese characters on the ward boundaries, she appeared to make some of the outer circles disappear.</p><p>"That won't notify anyone inside?"</p><p>"I presume she could check it," she answered without looking up. "We should be safe now, though." <em>I need to get her to put the wards back on my body. At least I don't have to worry about most of the wards the Ministry put on.</em></p><p>The three of them walked up to the castle as Hannah handed Hermione her wand, which she had not used in days. Surprisingly, it seemed pretty easy for Hermione to remove the warding. She then responded to the expression her Hufflepuff friend was wearing.</p><p>"The Xian are some of the oldest and most powerful wizards in the world. They showed me how to remove wards without tripping the inner wards. Not to get too much into the theory, but the trick is to place a specific blocking ward in between the first and second layer, which keeps the removal of the first from activating the second. Sometimes that sort of thing is anticipated and it becomes more of a puzzle, but if you have the knowledge and the patience you can get through anything eventually."</p><p>The Hufflepuff nodded at the explanation. As far as she understood with the general theory of magic that her friend had been developing, there were no absolutes. No spell was inevitable, no ward impassable, no charm irreversible, and no curse unbreakable. After hearing Ron and his associates describe the rounded black shields, which they doubted were not simply distractions conjured by Ministry officials, she could not absolutely rule out the chance that certain dark spells would be blocked by them. It had been difficult catching up on all that had taken place since she had been in prison, but she was happy to know that most of her friends were still alive.</p><p>It had been sad hearing about how Terry went out, though.</p><p>The Gryffindor knocked on the door as he asked the Ravenclaw to scan the castle. <em>We could have brought Luna, I suppose, but we probably thought we would be better with a smaller group in this context. It would be better not to surprise Dean with some sort of army. </em>Being honest with herself, she was still afraid of him.</p><p>As soon as the door opened, a curse of a sickly green hue chased Ron away from it as Hermione sank to the floor. Hannah threw the door open herself, casting a stunner blindly. She missed, but it appeared the caster, a middle-aged witch in a black and white dress, was already clutching her head in pain.</p><p>"<em>Petrificus Totalus,</em>" she incanted, her friends appearing behind her.</p><p>"Thanks. What sort of curse was that? Couldn't rule out a killer."</p><p>"I did not recognize it either," Hermione said. "I managed to assault her mind through the door, though, so that might have been what canceled it." They were standing around their target, whom they presumed to be Bulstrode's mother. She did not look much like her daughter. "绳索." Red cords wrapped around the immobilized witch and she took the cue, removing her own body-bind.</p><p>"What do you know about the bloke who's been going around killing you lot?" Ron asked, moving her body to a Persian in the drawing room. He took a seat right next to it.</p><p>"What do you want with me? I have no ties to any living Death Eaters."</p><p>"That's not good enough for the Ministry," Hannah spat. "Just because your husband isn't around and your daughter's underage doesn't mean they won't torture the truth out of you. Frankly, I don't know why you haven't fled."</p><p>"I have nothing to flee!" she argued back. "I spend seventeen years under the Imperius Curse, I find out I have a daughter, and now I'm wanted for being connected to some quasi-terror-"</p><p>"Check if she's lying," Ron suggested. Hermione shook her head.</p><p>"I... I don't know how to tell you this, but you were forced to conceive whilst you had no will of your own," she explained. "Do you... do you still feel attached to your daughter?" she asked. Hannah was still trying to keep up with the developments. <em>You can be under an Imperius for that long? Whoever did it must have- </em>She tried to think of whether or not Bulstrode was still alive. She remembered nothing of the recent news of Death Eater activity, nothing of older news from when she was in Hogwarts-</p><p>
  <em>I haven't read any articles since that old Quibbler-</em>
</p><p>The older witch was answering the Ravenclaw, but she was not listening. <em>What the hell is the date? How long has it been since-</em></p><p>"Are you alright?" the Gryffindor asked, perhaps for the third time that day. She found herself going outside to see the moon, but the sky was too clouded.</p><p>"Ron, I think she's turning!"</p><p>"Well, we have to stun her, then-"</p><p>"That won't hold her for long, we need the chain- don't you still have it?"</p><p>"It's at the old base; I'll be back as soon as I'm out of the wards-" Hannah could no longer hear his voice, and she decided he must have left.</p><p>"Sorry..." she managed. "I lost track-"</p><p>"It's okay, we'll make sure you don't hurt anyone- and that no one hurts you. I'm still really sorry about what happened and every time you have to-"</p><p>"Don't-" she growled. "Just put me down as long as you can-" She wished she still had Slughorn's potions, but even if the man was out of St. Mungo's, she would probably never see him again.</p><p>"Is there a safe?" she heard Hermione ask. "绳索"</p><p>"I'm not telling you how to-" Her higher reasoning capacities overburdened with the task of trying to keep herself in control, Hannah could not quite guess her friend's intentions as she felt the red cords wrap around her. It would not hold her beast form for long, but neither could anything else. <em>Please get away from me. Please get Lady Bulstrode away from me. I don't want to kill her.</em></p><p>The beast found itself restrained. That alone was nothing new, it seemed that every night it woke hungry, and every night it woke restrained, unable to fight her way out of her bindings, but she always had the strength to try. This time it seemed she had something around her chest and forelegs, but her claws could just reach the lower bindings. Not for the first time, she wanted access to the human's memories, since it would have at least given her more information on what was going on.</p><p>Growling, she rolled around on the floor, feeling her bonds grow tighter. A wizard came through the door, but she paid him no mind. If he came any closer her teeth would be more than enough to deal with him; she hardly needed her claws. Struggling, she managed to snap a few of the cords, but the witch was restraining her more, her mouth, her haunches- She felt something click into place right as she got a paw into her bindings. Howling, she found her rear leg had been chained to some sort of post.</p><p>
  <em>Hannah?</em>
</p><p><em>I am going to kill you. Let me off this chain. </em>The witch seemed taken aback for a moment.</p><p>
  <em>If you're going to kill me, I can't let you off the chain. Do you know anything about Hannah?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am about to cast a false memory charm on you. These will not be Hannah's memories, but I can assure you they are true, as they are my memories of her. Do you want to know about her?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Of course I do. If I learn where her mate sleeps at night-</em>
</p><p><em>I'll tell you anything you want to know. </em>The strange witch was being oddly patient with her. In all her past wakings, she had mostly been alone, but the pack-like familiarity with which the witch communicated suggested she knew the human.</p><p>Memories poured in. Her suspicion based on the smell of her own pheromones was correct; the human form did have a mate; his scent was still on her body. She saw them lying together only recently and could not help but to note what fools they were to try to rut where they could be attacked, and then to stop when the witch appeared, only to flee like a proper prey animal. She would not know what to do with offspring, of course, but they would be kin and kind.</p><p>Eventually the humans left her to the memories. She saw that the name of her other side was Hannah Abbott, and the witch and wizard were Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, and they had all spent an inordinate amount of time together. Gone was another wizard named Terry Boot, but that was no matter. The wise hunter knew that some prey always escaped, and it was better to just worry about what was directly in front of her, which was just a pair of children and an old witch who was still tied up. The beast knew not what they wanted with her, but it seemed their work was done for a little while.</p><p>The door came open again. This time it was a witch and a wizard, though the witch looked like she was the age of the others, but the wizard looked much younger. There was some pointless confusion. The beast could not tell what they were saying, but it hardly mattered. She tuned out their conversations the way she disregarded the constant chirping of insects; without any particular effort. Making herself as small as possible, and lying down as if to sleep, she had some hope they would venture in her direction. The desire for blood on her fangs grew. There was one among them, however, if she killed him, she would not eat.</p><p>The humans started to fight, which she ignored. Their fights were pointless, as even when someone ended up dead, no one was eaten. She did not watch even as she heard the incantations of spells going back and forth. Her instincts told her she was still as magical as they were, even as a beast, and the memories from her other side confirmed she had some understanding of spells and the crafts only humans were meant to know. The werewolf was equally intelligent, to be sure, as wizards had yet to discover how a brain might be transfigured to make it smarter or duller.</p><p>
  <em>Why, then, does the werewolf not perform magic?</em>
</p><p>She supposed she was in something of a unique position. None other, she presumed, had ever been shown such memories, and none other had been instructed in a class. The beast almost snorted at the notion of one of her kind sitting still with children rather than devouring them. Slowing her heart rate, she felt the magic in her very blood and struggled to bring it forth.</p><p><em>A witch needs a wand. </em>Effortlessly could her human half call forth her magic with a narrow length of wood and whatever the hell smelled so different within. Animal remains, she presumed, if in the last place she expected to find them. <em>A beast, however, would not allow herself to use such an instrument.</em></p><p>At long last it seemed the humans were done fighting and done talking with each other. She was starting to understand their speech; she knew what names were, and she knew enough to pick up from the few memories she had seen what a few of them were specifically. As much as she hated her other side, the beast was grateful to have at least some understanding of what went on around her. <em>I would trade that for a nice rabbit, though. That or a cockatrice, of course.</em></p><p>She longed to hunt and breathe free, though she knew that feeling perhaps more intimately than any other. In the recent past she had spent several nights in a dark room without her chain, but still unable to escape. She shredded everything she could shred with her claws and teeth, but it put her no closer to the wild. The idea of hunting was beyond a need to her, it was an existential part of who she was, and the most delicious experience a werewolf could have was the dark magic she cast through her very being- the unbreakable curse of lycanthropy.</p><p>The room was empty except for her.</p><p>The beast was under the impression she had been alone for most of her life, and that was fine. It was not an instinct in werewolves to breed with their own kind, and as such, they had no need of others. The only animals they really needed were prey, and there was always more than enough of that to be had. Presently, however, there was nothing to kill, and nothing to turn. It was functionally the same as all the other times the human had decided to imprison her. She knew why, of course, though the reason disgusted her. Hannah Abbott was possessed of a desire to protect her dear friends.</p><p>The night passed in silence.</p><p>When the witch woke, she removed the red bindings and stretched, grateful to be able to reach her wand. Fortunately her beast form had not destroyed the place, nor had it managed to get out of the chain she now removed. She found herself wondering how the conversation with Lady Bulstrode had gone, but more importantly, where her friends were at the moment. Something about her mind felt like it had been violated, though it was not the first time she had that feeling; she doubted she kept very many thoughts to herself at the Ministry school, though if anyone did that it would have been some faculty member.</p><p>Walking around the great castle, she took a moment to appreciate the magical warmth, the gothic architecture, and the stirring depictions of war on every stained glass window. The rug and banners were the same shade of emerald, and she expected that at one point, the castle had been used to host a number of families, all of them with allegiance to Slytherin of course. Even when she was at Hogwarts, there were times when she felt like the school had one House, and then three others to keep it company, or perhaps keep it from controlling the place entirely.</p><p>Hannah found her friends in a small room on one of the upper floors. If there was one thing certain about Ron, it was that he was not a claustrophobe, and seemed to prefer being in a smaller room when he only had a few people with him. Oddly, however, he and Hermione were joined by Dean and Parvati, whom she recognized instantly, even if there was something off about the former.</p><p>"Glad to see you're up and about," the darker wizard said as she entered. "We were just talking about you."</p><p>"Do the others know we're here?" she asked, ignoring him.</p><p>"Yes, Ron apparated back to tell them you had turned and we would have to stay the night. We thought it best not to have too many people passing through the Order's secret base all the time." The Ravenclaw seemed put off by her lack of an immediate response. "It was kind of creepy here."</p><p>"They didn't sleep in the same bed," Parvati provided. Hannah only scowled at her.</p><p>"What did we get out of Bulstrode's mother?"</p><p>"Basically nothing," the red-haired wizard summarized. "I reckon they never really told her anything, 's why they decided it wouldn't matter if they left her to watch the castle."</p><p>"I figured," the other Gryffindor wizard intoned, agreeing. "The point of coming here was not to learn from her, but to be able to use her as leverage against Bulstrode." It momentarily struck her as weird that Dean would think he could just waltz in and take an adult witch prisoner, but she remembered that he was rather prolific in the defense of Hogwarts, and most adults went on to forget much of the combative skills and spells they learned at school. She had been possessed of a false impression that a teenager would stand no chance against an adult because most of the adults around her had been teachers. <em>Pure bloods would be more likely to know that the average student has a good chance against the average adult, unless that adult is in some profession that requires martial ability.</em></p><p>"Well, would her husband have a better idea of where the Stone is?"</p><p>"Most likely. He's not in the Inner Circle, but he knows people who are, and they seem to want the Stone," Hermione explained. "I suspect some of them want to destroy it, but there may be no point until he is dead, or they may still need it for the gold."</p><p>"If we put pressure on Bulstrode, he might well destroy it for us," Parvati suggested. "We could tell him his wife is pregnant and we'll burn her to death if he doesn't destroy the-"</p><p>"Merlin-" Ron started back, shouting.</p><p>"Honestly, I doubt some of them even know if it can be destroyed!" Hermione objected. "That was one of the things they asked me. They were trying to ask me in such a manner that as long as I did not think too long about it, I would not know what they really wanted, but I told them that it should be breakable, though Voldemort might put protective enchantments on it."</p><p>"Well, suppose he just steals it for us," Dean decided. "He wouldn't be able to send us proof that he destroyed it, anyway." He looked at Hannah to see she was still scowling. "You were the ones who wanted to work with us. This is the Dark Lord, not fucking Malfoy."</p><p>There was a pause. If anyone had any further objections, she imagined they would have been brought up. All that was left was how they would do it.</p><p>"I just have one more question," she said.</p><p>"Please. We exist to enlighten you," the Gryffindor witch said.</p><p>"Why is Dean so small?" Everyone was staring at her. "I'm sorry. I tried, but I couldn't think of a nice way to ask that."</p><p>"Unicorn blood," he said at length. "Just leave it at that."</p>
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<a name="section0033"><h2>33. The Inner Circle</h2></a>
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    <p>Draco Malfoy had spent untold hours discussing plans with his father over the past few days, but nothing was entirely certain yet. Durmstrang had welcomed him back like a regular hero, confirming his suspicions and putting him far ahead of Evan. <em>Alas, I remind myself he could never have been a true threat; he knew nothing of the workings of nobility in his upbringing, and it should surprise no one he still needs help getting up to speed.</em></p><p>Academically, he had no shortage of help doing just that. It was no secret he had been responsible for the defeat of both Tõnisson and Lysenko, and these were no small achievements to his fellow students, including those older than himself. After learning that Lysenko and Kamotsky were both going after the Heir of Slytherin, their failure to make any headway due to his ability to tear through virtually every threat they sent his way embarrassed them greatly, and the vassals he left behind for the sake of convenience, Davis and Bulstrode, were quick to denounce their weakness. Older students were asking him about blood purism; it seemed especially those of a low quantum wondered where they fit into the designs of the Death Eaters.</p><p>Associating with the older students who were inclined to catch him up on everything he had missed made him more popular with the teachers than he would have been, though some of them continued to resent him for being able to skip as long as he had and come back. He delighted himself imagining Snape's expression upon finding out that the Dark Lord, about whom he had been warned to no end, was quite forgiving when it came to those who procured results. Perhaps it was so that he had only been offered the mission of freeing Grindelwald as a punishment, but if it were that no one had any expectation he would succeed, the pleasant surprise of it all only made his victory sweeter.</p><p>He was not without concerns, of course; he knew that the Lord Voldemort could reveal his true identity at any time, and though he still wondered what the plan was for dealing with the dark wizard he had recently freed, he at least had an idea about the first mystery. Not three hours earlier he had heard from his Aunt Bellatrix that there was a plan to send in a small amount of investigators ahead of the finalization of the Ys conference, with only a handful of countries still holding out on their decision. She knew not the purpose of the investigation, but he could guess it had something to do with finding out how Nurmengrad had been infiltrated and what the resurrected Dark Lord had to do with it. Macnair having infiltrated their operation as long as he had was enough for them to know that the enemy knew he was back from the dead, but with his exposure as a Death Eater, it was almost certain the Ministry had most of their secrets out of him.</p><p>As much as it seemed like things were going well for Draco, things seemed to be the worse for the world. He continued to suspect that his master truly did not understand the havoc that Grindelwald would wreak on various magical governments, not all of which were necessarily bad for the interests of blood purism. It was also worthy of note that scores of innocent witches and wizards would be killed in the process, but he knew from the start things like that were required. <em>Unlike sleeping with Tracey. I fail to see why that was required, and as we approach the end of the term and such a time as when I see her again, it will make things substantially more awkward.</em></p><p>It was not as if he did not care for Padma at all, but at some point he must have decided it was unlikely for him ever to see her again, and they would have to break it off. Additionally, as he had discussed with his father, staying with her would not be the most helpful thing for the Death Eaters. He could tell himself he would rather do that in person, and that was why he had not broken up with her, but the more likely explanation was that he had taken to discounting 'little things' like being honest with witches and restraining himself. It seemed preferable and even wise to allow himself a greater latitude in his personal life, the better to focus on 'big things'.</p><p>The whole thing, to his chagrin, was starting to remind him of a conversation with Longbottom.</p><p>"I was thinking, Malfoy." At some point he had stopped using the nickname. They were in a library, where he was making Crabbe and Goyle read for a change.</p><p>"Truly?"</p><p>"Yeah, I do it a lot. The way my grandmother told me what each House represents, it was a little weird. It didn't really match. Gryffindor was courage, Ravenclaw was being smart, Hufflepuff was loyalty, and Slytherin was ambition." He had heard something to that effect before.</p><p>"What of it?"</p><p>"Well, courage and being smart are strengths, while loyalty is a virtue, and ambition is just kind of a driving force that might be good or bad."</p><p>"Has it occurred to you that the great Longbottom matron might be biased?" he remembered asking. "Of course, I suppose that there is a more disturbing possibility, one that even I had not considered, not caring about these things. The Houses are just not equal. I have always favored my own, after all."</p><p>"I don't think that's what it is. I've been friends with or I've tried to be friends with people from all four Houses, and I've never been under the impression they weren't equal. I think you were right the first time, Gran just had it wrong. I mean, maybe I have it wrong too, but I think some of the people I know are basically the best their whole House has."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>"Well, let's start with Ron." Draco resisted the urge to snort. "It's not that he's the best there ever was, or I don't know if he is, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone braver. I never got the impression he wasn't afraid of something, and he still rushes in. I've asked him, here and there, why he does it and he just says there isn't any choice; it's just the right thing to do. Seems to think his life just isn't worth more to him than his obligations."</p><p>"I suppose that if your life were worthless..."</p><p>"I mean, I wasn't done. I was thinking about it, and it's got to be that the virtue of Gryffindor is having your priorities straight. Courage isn't a virtue in and of itself, it's a strength. When other people are planning or preparing, he'll be acting."</p><p>"Very well, suppose your model works with one student in the whole castle. Who would represent Ravenclaw, the mudblood?"</p><p>"Well, yeah, but I'd prefer you didn't call her that. It's not just because she's smart- most people in that House are. It's because she cares about knowledge and the truth. She's always seeking out what's true no matter how complicated it gets or whatever else is false."</p><p>"Funny you should mention the truth-" He thought he had already told Longbottom about how the free exchange of information represented a raw deal for the truth.</p><p>"Well, I was getting to that. You seem to think blood purism is the truth, and because you can't discuss it with anyone cleverer than I am, you'll never be proven wrong. Hermione can't argue against you or the conspirators, because you wouldn't listen to anything she had to say and they would just label her as a blood purist. You don't really think things'll be better if it's the other way around, you just think it's necessary for everyone to believe what you do, whether or not it's true."</p><p>Draco scowled. He had arguments in favor of his positions, of course, but the primacy of the muggle threat was precisely why they needed to be believed by the magical populace at all costs. Before he could respond, though, the Hufflepuff continued.</p><p>"That's why I think the virtue of Slytherin is consequence. You're someone who cares about the wizarding world and its peoples and you're going to do whatever needs to be done to... have the result that magic continues. It's not that you don't care about virtues, it's just that yours is a little different. Your strength is ruthlessness."</p><p>"Mean you to tell me what your own House believes?" he asked, his scowl deepening. Somehow he was unhappy Longbottom had been able to come up with a virtue for his.</p><p>"Well, it's supposed to be loyalty, but what everyone's getting wrong about that is- well, they're being loyal to the wrong people and the wrong ideals. I guess I'd have to say they're making good use of their strength, which is alliance and trust, but what got me started on this was that they seem to have mixed that up with their virtues. Some of them are going all the way around to arguing they need to use dark magic to kill the blood purists like you, and some of them are going around the other way and saying they need to get the purebloods on their side in order to beat out dark magic."</p><p>He remembered how the rest of the conversation went, but it was mostly annoying him because, on top of things at last, he had almost grown accustomed to having a severing charm readied at his neck. Before, he did all he could just to stay within the toleration of his father and the Dark Lord and whatever other master he had to pretend to serve at the time, and his actions were only consequent of their whims, or that had always been a serviceable excuse. <em>Reaching the top of the ladder at Durmstrang, I can hand down policy to more subordinates with more authority than ever before.</em></p><p>It was rather like being let out of a cage to find himself in a different kind of cage. If Longbottom thought that Slytherins were ruthless, that was all well and good, but it was not as if they were without restraint. Being in command was like riding the back of a dragon, it called for nothing but the greatest restraint and control.</p><p>After classes were over, he found himself looking around the dining hall as if for the first time, as his assembled force filed in. He had left Nott's punishment to the Death Eaters, as the boy's father was meant to suffer as well, but he looked twice to see him among the vassals before shaking his head. For a school with so dark a reputation, it was odd that the room was not dreary at all, but a bright design of white and gold, the walls the same immaculate hue as the tablecloths on every table. <em>I do not believe in the short time I have been here that anyone has ever asked what happens if a student were to spill something.</em></p><p>"I believe everyone is here, Malfoy."</p><p>"Thank you, Goyle. I believe you are right." He waved his wand and chairs came out. It was a simple spell and he had expected there would come a time or two that he could use it, and it showed the proper magnanimity for a lord's son. "Either you have joined us today because you celebrate the return of Grindelwald, or by hearing my words, you plot to destroy him." There were whispers throughout the tables, accusations of disloyalty. "Worry not about the distinction. I respect any wizard who sees his betters as a threat, whether or not I agree with him. From whence I have come, whether you are here to aid or to injure you would be counted as a Slytherin."</p><p>They had heard the term before, which was well enough. Lord Voldemort had been a supremely controversial figure among the students, and it was no surprise that he had again returned to the nearly constant discussions. It seemed everyone either wanted to kill him in favor of some other figure or become his ally. <em>When I was in first year, I might have thought those were meaningful choices.</em></p><p>"I am aware of the many failed attempts of those who have risen to become the next Dark Lord. Only thirty years ago there was a Hungarian calling himself the Lord of the Greater Bull who seemed intent to destroy magic itself. His failure and defeat alone were not enough for him to lose the respect of the aspiring dark wizard; it was his failure to return from failure. Had Grindelwald become content to rot in his cell as no more than a memory, he would have lost my respect sooner even than the prior wizard, if he had some way of escaping his current predicament."</p><p>He paused, allowing his message to sink in. The better-informed in the audience of wizards would be aware that the self-appointed Lord had been obliviated and had his wand snapped. Much of his soul had been eaten by a dementor, and the Black Sea Sorcerers were still on the hunt for him, wandering in the muggle world, unaware of who he was. Unlike his former followers, who had mostly estranged themselves from his meager memory, they intended to punish him in a manner they believed more fitting. <em>At least, I suppose, he shall not have to spend the rest of his life dreading what is to come.</em></p><p>"Will Grindelwald return to us?" The question came from Lysenko. He had lost most of his following, but it was no surprise he preferred to side with Grindelwald than the blood purists. <em>Mudblood. Your time comes quickly.</em></p><p>"Karkaroff will serve as Headmaster. Having drawn the ire of the Lord Voldemort, he has no other choice but to cower behind these walls, and I would presume I have demonstrated that what we need to do is to return to him." There was a hum of agreement, but he glowered at it all the same. It was distasteful, responding before someone else was done speaking. "This time, I can assure you our master will take greater care than he had as a young man. He acknowledges his mistake of drawing the ire of magical governments by flaunting Secrecy; first he will have the wands to conquer the nonmagical before revealing himself to them."</p><p>Draco was aware that what he was saying was entirely false and not based on any kind of conversation he had with the dark wizard. He was also aware that his mental shields were perfectly resistant to the touch of Legilimency that he felt every few minutes.</p><p>"When do we return for service?" It was Kamotsky. The larger wizard made no secret of his admiration of Grindelwald, nor had he ever.</p><p>"We return when he calls. Now is the time to sort out the loyalties of his former school. He knows the blood purists have freed him from his prison, and he has made amends with his former enemies. It is only the most desperate of times, of course, that can call such forces to fight under the same banner." Whispers passed through the crowd. <em>This, I shall allow. </em>"Our greatest concern is one we share with the dark wizard we have freed- the conference at Ys."</p><p>He expected those assembled to be following along or at least pretending as much. It was easy enough to see why the Death Eaters would oppose the decision; the fear that Crouch would expand his crusade outward once the tipping point had been lost was a large part of what had driven them to take up residency on the continent and elsewhere. <em>We should have assassinated him, but the Dark Lord forbade it- he could have done it himself last year without anyone noticing. Does he truly underestimate his enemies to such an extent?</em></p><p>"We have heard of the blood purists rallying forces elsewhere in Europe." It was one of the Estonian's old friends. Lysenko had a brief look of disdain, but nothing more.</p><p>"Rallying forces where subtler approaches would likely fail, yes. My father has been in France the better part of the year. There is some chance of the monarchists overturning the country, but the loudest expressions of sympathy for a pan-European jurisdiction can also be found there." Draco found himself grateful, not for the first time, that he had been looking into magical Russian books for Evan's benefit since the end of second year. Since then, he looked over them in the summers here and there, and the language came as fluently to his mind as the Queen's English.</p><p>"Who is disloyal to Grindelwald?" Everyone turned to see from whence the obvious question came, and it was the Heir of Slytherin, standing at the back with the few people who remained loyal to him specifically. It stung a little that Crabbe's younger brother numbered among them, but ultimately he counted for little more than sentiment. He would have liked an ally in him, but eventually he would have an ally in Evan, and it would be all the same at that point.</p><p>"You ask a question you can answer yourself," the Malfoy heir responded, speaking on more or less equal terms.</p><p>"I am for the Dark Lord."</p><p>"Perhaps he will be content to share the world with the dark wizard Karkaroff had me free," Draco suggested. "Like you, there are many who are not for Grindelwald, and as long as they are not against him, I expect he shall have no issue with them. There are those, however, who would oppose him and the dominion of the magical over the nonmagical world."</p><p>"I am for the Dark Lord, even if he opposes Grindelwald."</p><p>"I would suspect a wizard who brands arms would command such loyalty. What he has not done, however, is make himself an enemy of his old hero, the dark wizard who inspired him. Consider this, however. The elder of the two has spent decades in a cell reading whatever book he chose, a punishment of his own design meant to tantalize the imprisoned with knowledge of a world he could never explore. He would not be defeated by the soft-hearted Albus Dumbledore a second time, not even by him who successfully repelled Lord Voldemort from the grounds of Hogwarts."</p><p>Evan's scowl deepened as he turned and walked away, taking a few of the students with him, though perhaps fewer than he had to start. Once more the heir to the House of Malfoy waxed sympathetic; there had been a time he too had been trounced as badly by superior wits and wills. It was true, undeniable even, that the Heir of Slytherin was powerful, able to speak to snakes and walk up walls, and knowledgeable of quite the array of dark curses, pursuant to the teaching of some unknown father as well as the Dark Lord himself, but it was not the powerful that would win the war. On a greater scale, one could expand the idea to his father and men like him who ended up in favorable positions after the war, having opened them up by killing the people who previously inhabited them, and letting their powerful master take the fall for it.</p><p>It was inevitable that both Grindelwald and Voldemort would fall again, and they would fall because of their arrogance, their inability to perceive threats around them. Draco had thought much of himself once, but having every possible punishment visited upon him was enough to correct that notion. In truth, it did not matter whether it was Dumbledore or some other old legend, any wizard determined to conquer the world by his own power set himself against an endless amount of obstacles, and it followed logically that eventually he would encounter one he could not overcome.</p><p>There were no more questions. Eventually Davis and Bulstrode could pass the message on to the witches, who were equally interested, though he supposed he could have done it in real time, had he so desired. Having realized the two halves of the school were actually one, the two of them had taken to communicating by Legilimency every so often. He knew how to reach out to her without invading her mind, which it seemed she appreciated, and he was effectively able to direct her study in shielding herself, even helping her practice. Perhaps there was some amount of guilt to be felt over never having officially ended things with Padma, but, as always, there were greater concerns.</p>
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<a name="section0034"><h2>34. Interlude: Unexpected Discoveries</h2></a>
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    <p>Electrum had been in Austria for three days, but there was no read on Grindelwald. He was willing to comply with the local laws, but they were making it especially difficult to get anywhere, both literally and in the investigation. Apparation was the only permitted method of magical travel, and it was only permitted under specific circumstances and in specific places. He was aware the casual observer would equate this treatment with what the leading faction in the British Ministry proposed, but at least there they had exceptions for necessity in their regulations, like with Aurors chasing dark wizards. Though he was in the program, neither he nor any of his charges were Aurors, but he reminded himself it was another thing that would be undone as soon as the conference decision went through.</p><p>In Austria, there was close to unanimous support for voting positively as soon as the vote was held; the magical government had all but cast its lot. <em>Yet before that takes place, it would be a good idea to let the world know who was really behind the menace being let out of the cage of his own making.</em> Justin Finch-Fletchley, a muggleborn he had managed to recruit at the last minute, had suggested they find some place to go first, and look around there until they had a lead.</p><p>It was a better plan than he had initially, and it was one that was the least likely to result from vestigial blood purism. Staying in one place meant they had to choose where, and they decided on Vienna, though Hopkins always seemed jumpier whenever he was in large crowds. Splitting up for a better chance of finding a lead, he waited at what looked like a pub to see if he could overhear anything. His German had always been passable, and if he sat in one place long enough, eventually he would become part of the scenery. Hearing nothing after a few hours, he went to the pre-arranged meeting place. It was a cathedral that could be spotted from a few blocks away. He found them standing among the graves in the little courtyard.</p><p>"Jones? Finch-Fletchey?" he asked. The expression the other wizard was wearing told him that he had not found anything. It was an appropriate look of shame.</p><p>"There was... an owl for me," the witch started. She produced a letter. "I have no idea how it found you."</p><p>"No one would," Electrum said, looking over it. The letter was signed 'a friend' in blood, and he knew there was some sort of Divination or Arithmancy that could determine whose it was.</p><p>
  <em>I had ever considered you to number among the most knowledgeable of the nomenclature. Perhaps your leader was under the impression only Crouch would know this little excursion took place, but you needed approval for an international portkey, and I happen to know the right people to ask. If you seek the source of the scourge of Grindelwald, know that you leave nothing of interest at home. I have happened upon three of the wanted criminals we have sought, and the fourth is presumed to be dead, having been captured by the contemptible Death Eaters. They seem to have no intention of leaving the island, meaning they will be quite trapped when the wards preventing escape are active. The last vestiges of blood purism will be destroyed.</em>
</p><p>"I assumed it referred to the students who escaped arrest at Hogwarts after accusing Crouch of putting Death Eaters in the school," Jones explained. "I remember that at one point, Leanne assigned Ernie with finding them so that they could be arrested."</p><p>"That's correct. Macmillan, however, has since been presumed dead."</p><p>"Dead? Why? I know we haven't seen him at school."</p><p>"For him to be assigned to anything, and then not make a report for months, we can only assume he has no loyalty or died in the process. If this is a surveillance report from him, it comes too late to count as doing his job." Electrum scowled at the parchment as if it would tell him more. He shook his head. "We'll process the note and find out who sent it. At the moment, we can't be sure whether it was Macmillan or someone claiming to be him, and even if we knew that, we don't know whether or not he's lying."</p><p>Everyone was quiet for a moment, though the witch was probably communicating the most with her lips pressed together in a perfectly flat line. <em>I'll have to make it up to her.</em> Finch-Fletchley broke the silence.</p><p>"I... saw someone. It was someone I recognized from Hogwarts."</p><p>"You should have brought that up before we discussed the letter. Letters don't have feet. Was it a Slytherin?"</p><p>"No, but she was a pure blood, I think. Did you ever run into Lavender Brown? She's a Gryffindor, and I was under the impression-"</p><p>"No. Your year?"</p><p>"Yes, and I was under the impression she had gone to the Irish school. She was one of the ones-"</p><p>"What's she doing in Vienna?"</p><p>"I don't know, God damn you!" Finch-Fletchley shouted. "Stop interrupting me. It's like I can't possibly have anything of value to say." It looked like the other two were somewhat shocked by his expression, but they said nothing about insubordination.</p><p>"Well, you might, you're just not at leave to decide what information is most important. What were you about to say?"</p><p>"She was one of the ones who wanted to go after Death Eaters, she and her boyfriend Seamus had something of a following. They might already have something on Grindelwald."</p><p>"That, or they might be dark lions. Either way, we need to find her. Where was she?"</p><p>"She was staying at the Steigenberger. That's why I wasn't concerned she would be moving before this evening. I've been to Vienna before, you know."</p><p>"Then you should be able to lead us straight there."</p><p>No further argument was brokered. It was obvious enough to Electrum that Justin was a bit puffed up, and at least part of it was probably because muggleborns were free of suspicion. <em>He also knows he's useful. Anyone who can be trusted is automatically that much more useful.</em></p><p>They made it to the hotel, where he caught some fucker about school age and hit him with a stunner. The other three were essentially forbidden from using magic at all in Austria, but he was of age and it was necessary anyway; he would have done it even if it put him in contention with some legality. He made Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley carry the target to an alley while Jones looked out for anyone else. He thanked her as he followed her to the alley, concealing them with a few muggle-repelling charms.</p><p>"Seen him before?"</p><p>"I think he's a Gryffindor. Firstie by the looks of it."</p><p>"Well, then he's no business here. <em>Rennervate. </em>Tell us your name." The kid was panicking, but at least he refrained from making noise. "We're Hufflepuffs."</p><p>"Then... then you should know what we're doing here has to be done."</p><p>"Can't very well leave you to it, then, can we? What's your name?"</p><p>"I'm Jimmy Peakes."</p><p>"That's good, who else is here? We think we've seen Lavender Brown. Is she your leader?" The boy shook his head.</p><p>"Cormac is." He looked around before saying anything again. <em>Not a lot of trust between them. </em>"He sort of stole her from Seamus." Electrum could not have wanted more to release a pained sigh, but he stifled it. <em>More important questions to ask.</em></p><p>"Is he of age?"</p><p>"He's a year on."</p><p>"Why are the three of you here?" It was Jones. He decided to let the question pass.</p><p>"It's not just three of us. Romilda wanted to come too. We've got a couple from the Irish school as well." The name was not familiar, but there was no point in pursuing the matter. "We're here to join Grindelwald against the blood purists."</p><p>"He's fighting the blood purists?" Hopkins asked.</p><p>"No. Shut up. Grindelwald has killed scores of innocent people and was labeled as a threat by the current government. He has no stated antagonism with the Death Eaters or their leader."</p><p>"Says you," Peakes responded, feeling rebellious all of a sudden. "You're just not willing to do whatever it takes. The Slytherins were all calling him a bad guy, Cormac heard it himself." Electrum was in no particular mood to argue with a child, or anyone acting like one. The accusation, however, would not stand.</p><p>"We are quite willing to do what it takes to defeat Voldemort; we have already done it. When the resolution goes through-"</p><p>"It won't go through without Grindelwald!" the boy argued. "The blood purists in continental governments wouldn't have even discussed it if it weren't for-"</p><p>"<em>Silencio. </em>There. Now we can have a productive discussion. The conference at Ys was decided before Grindelwald was released. Delegates who were unsure about the decision went back to their homelands to hear their voices, and with the attacks he has already conducted, they are now expected to return and cast the deciding vote." He had heard about the attacks not long after getting to Austria. One was in Hungary, which was previously opposed to the decision, and the other struck in Poland, where over a hundred government officials were poisoned at a banquet. There was no time to wait for the courts to assemble and determine who could have committed that crime; courts were a deliberate delaying tactic of blood purists to help their friends get away with crimes.</p><p>"They've confirmed that they're here to help him," Finch-Fletchley decided. "We should get the others."</p><p>"Everyone is aware of that," Electrum responded. "Now that we have the truth out of one of them, however, we can return to our mission of finding out whether the Death Eaters broke into Nurmengard or not." He doubted the dark wizard could have escaped on his own, even if he did design the prison, because it stood to reason he would have done that a long time ago, and he could think of no former supporters wandering around. In all the time he had been on the continent, he had run into virtually no expression of favor for Grindelwald, though it was possible his home country just hated him the most of all.</p><p>"He probably doesn't know anything," Jones suggested. "We should get the others to see if they have an idea about Grindelwald's whereabouts, or if we're lucky they already know who did it himself."</p><p>"That's brilliant," he evaluated, keeping any sort of surprise out of his voice. "Cormac would be the most likely to know. We'll capture him and find out what he knows already." He turned back to Peakes. "You're going to be difficult."</p><p>"As difficult as I can be! You're helping the blood purists by going after their sworn enemy. The Slytherins always said-"</p><p>"Isn't it obvious by now that they were lying? They only ever lie, and there's some reason to believe they were the ones who let him out. A number of them went to Durmstrang after Hogwarts fell, and that's enough of a connection to at least start the investigation."</p><p>The boy only stared back, and Electrum sighed. <em>He's not going to get it. He was never part of any of our discussions.</em></p><p>"We'll have the room number out of him," Hopkins said. "We promise he'll be in good enough shape when we're done." He looked them back and forth. It was not as if it would take long to break a first-year, and he doubted they knew too many dangerous spells. He reminded himself that the national law forbid them from using magic.</p><p>"I'll keep a look out; tell you if I see anything." Almost everyone nodded as he passed through the alley, watching the people as they passed by. If any of them noticed, it was staying on the right side of the law not to say anything, because that would only call more attention to what they were doing.</p><p>He caught sight of suspicious movement and cast a few spells behind him with a flick of his wand. Keeping muggles away had hardly been his specialty, but it was part of Auror training, which he wanted to complete at some point. It looked like the person he was pursuing was a witch, though there was every reason to suspect a trick. There was Polyjuice, there were charms that could change the outward appearance, and it was somewhat less suspicious to masquerade as a witch. It was no secret the majority of Death Eaters were wizards.</p><p>He followed her into a narrow alley of shops and stalls, realizing they had crossed into the magical part of Vienna, which was perfectly secure, though only a witch or wizard could get in. He was not quite certain about squibs, but he was not quite certain he had seen one anywhere in Austria. The witch ahead of him ducked into an apothecary. Something about her looked familiar, but at this distance he could not tell friend from foe, and even up close there were still tricks that would probably work. There had been no reason for him to learn Legilimency, as it was banned in the Ministry and generally illegal except when necessary, so he would have no way of knowing who it was anyway. <em>I'll just have to keep following her. I should be able to tell if she's some kind of blood purist or muggle-baiter at some point.</em></p><p>When she left the shop, he was reading a local newspaper, watching her go down the alley, not the way she came. He had not been able to see her buy anything, which suggested she had other purposes. Following her around the corner before stopping and leaning against a phone booth, she went into a total of two more shops for a suspiciously long time, again without buying anything. <em>She has to be meeting someone. It's possible she's meeting multiple people, or she's just going to multiple businesses to disguise her intentions. If she walked half a mile to get to one place, then half a mile back without buying something, she would have to know that the casual observer would suspect something important happened in that one place.</em></p><p>He watched her come out of a third place when he recognized her appearance. <em>Hestia Jones- Ebony trusts her, and I'm meant to trust her as well, but it could be someone else in disguise. </em>It seemed likely she would buy something if for no other reason than to disguise her purposes, but even as he followed her around another corner, she did not. <em>I have to get back to the others soon. They'll go back to the meeting place, but they should know why I walked off.</em></p><p>Following her around a narrower corner into an alley, he was surprised to find he did not see her, and assumed she got ahead of him. <em>She could also be in any one of these doors, though I think these are loan offices- she's making a damn good effort to cover her tracks. </em>There was a wand to the back of his neck.</p><p>"How did you get around me?"</p><p>"I've an invisibility cloak." She put her wand away. "Remember me an Auror who would say 'Constant Vigilance' at a time like this, I do."</p><p>"Is that why you led me on a snipe hunt going to every different store around and not buying anything?" The witch only raised an eyebrow. "Never mind. What is it that you're doing here? You can't be looking for Grindelwald the same reason we are." <em>If I don't turn back now, Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley will be racing each other to do something stupid.</em></p><p>"More or less. I've word I need to get into Nurmengard."</p><p>"That's still not a reason, but I would guess you cannot tell me. If it helps, Crouch assigned me on a mission to determine the cause of the break-in. My team has run into a former Hogwarts student who seems to be trying to join the enemy."</p><p>"Slytherin?" she asked, walking after him. He had not noticed, but she had taken him far from where he saw her initially.</p><p>"Gryffindors. Apparently they think Grindelwald is the enemy of the Death Eaters because their kids have referred to him as being better left in prison for years."</p><p>"I suppose, but if he is not with them, that makes him their enemy."</p><p>"He's not with us, and that makes him our enemy," Electrum countered. <em>I've been ordered to go after him. Why is she making things difficult?</em></p><p>Eventually they were back on the main street and they went back to the meeting place, finding only Jones there. He did his best to contain his anger. It appeared she was looking around, but not in his direction.</p><p>"Where are Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley?" he asked. Her brow did not un-furrow as he approached.</p><p>"It's terrible- I thought we had everything out of him and I wanted to let Peakes lead us to the others- Justin said no and Hopkins said you'd say no, but he was fine with it as long as I said I'd suggested it- the short version is he got away from us somehow and they told me to go back here to tell you."</p><p>"They're looking for him, then?" Hestia asked. The other Jones nodded. He forbid himself from wondering if they were related.</p><p>"They said that they'd leave me to explain everything because, well, they think you like me and if they did it you'd be asking them why they weren't looking."</p><p>"Megan, he doesn't act any differently around you if he likes you or not," the adult witch explained. "Anyway, where are they looking?"</p><p>In moments they were off again. From the sound of it, the little fucker had some Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, which should really be banned, since Death Eaters had used it to evade Aurors before, and there were no effective responses to it. Light charms gave the user light, but apparently did little to illuminate the runner, since he and his surroundings would be shrouded in darkness, which was somehow more than just the absence of light. The hope with the plan had been that he would run to the hotel room where his friends were staying, since he would find allies there, but apparently he had no intention of leading them back.</p><p><em>We can't just ask at the desk. If they have a single braincell between them, they had to have confunded the receptionist when they picked up the keys, which they probably used for a discount. </em>It was odd to him what wizards thought was okay to do to muggles. Generally they were like animals, to where you could not just gut them with magic and make blood go everywhere, because people did not want to see that, but it was incorrect to say they had rights. Muggle-baiters like Grindelwald and those he inspired really only ran into problems by flirting with Secrecy; he was absolutely sure that if they had killed people but kept it quiet, it would have been fine.</p><p>Hestia suggested asking at the hotel, which they did, to find that there were no rooms being rented to teenagers or groups of teenagers, which was harder than he thought it would be to ask in German. Eventually deciding to search the place, they summoned various magical artefacts the Gryffindors might have on them in the hopes that one flying in their direction, or any sounds they made, would give them an idea of where they were. Electrum had doubted this would work, since it was likely there were other wizards staying at the same hotel, and even if they could summon a wand or a broomstick, they could only hope they would hear swearing or something.</p><p>"It's really annoying that Megan can't help us." The thought crossed his mind that the adult witch was a bit more old-fashioned.</p><p>"Well, it'd be better to get used to that. Crouch introduced another emergency measure at the Wizengamot to further restrict underage magic. What's left of the opposition is telling anyone who will listen that he's trying to turn to a Chinese system, despite his insistence that it would only go so far as to resemble Austria."</p><p>"Can't imagine what good that would do." It seemed like they were going to have to give up the search, at least for the night. They would most likely find Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley at the meeting place, where they could receive a proper lecture about risk-taking.</p>
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<a name="section0035"><h2>35. Short Negotiations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean had admitted at some point he was relatively sure he had not grown at all since first year. No one would have noticed second or third year, and somehow he stayed out of the way often enough the last year to where no one bothered with him, and from time to time he drank a potion to make himself appear larger. He was also relatively sure that Snape had administered Unicorn's Blood, which the theory said forcibly bound his soul to his body, turning him effectively into a more intelligent Inferius. He would remain the same for the rest of his life, if it could be called that.</p><p>"Have you and Parvati... sorry," he finished weakly. "I prob'ly shouldn't-"</p><p>"It's fine. No. I've been trying to get rid of her, actually. I can't quite put into words how much better off she is without me."</p><p>"I would've thought she'd already left." <em>No need to kick him while he's down. </em>"Sorry-"</p><p>"It's fine. You can't offend a walking corpse. If you want to know what the past year and a half have been like, it's all 'but I love you' and 'I have no particular need for you to grow up, or be a human'. I've tried to send her off to find her sister in India, but she saw through that one; she has an even better idea than I do of how that would be a needle in a haystack, and it didn't take long for her to figure that was why I sent her."</p><p>"Well, just break up with her."</p><p>"She said no! I said I hated her and we were done, but she already knew why I was ending things and she refused."</p><p>"She can do that?"</p><p>"She thinks she can. That's usually enough." Ron nodded his head back and forth, considering it a moment. He had paid more attention to Dean and Parvati in the past few days since returning to the Black property than he likely had in their four years at Hogwarts. It was a pathetic sight, and to say he did not envy the young man across from him was an understatement. <em>Can't really feel for the witch.</em></p><p>He was sure, on the rare occasion he thought about it, that Hannah probably felt bad about not being human any longer, but she was human most of the time, which was good enough for him. <em>I'm pretty sure I'm not just lying to myself to make her feel better. Does she feel like she's good enough? </em>He had not the foggiest clue about how to ask her that without making the problem, if it was a problem, worse than it was. Asking Hermione seemed like the wrong move. Ever since they had decided they needed to wait for some sort of response from Bulstrode, it seemed like there was a witch-only discussion every other minute. <em>Reckon it's no worse than Dean and I talking, but if I told her I thought Hannah might have some sort of problem with the way she saw herself, she'd repeat it back word for word.</em></p><p>On his last summer at home, his mother apparently recognized an expression he had not realized he was wearing as he sat on the bottom step. She told him that if he had witch problems, asking another might seem smart, but only if it was something he wanted the rest of the school to know. He responded with an annoyed look, and she told him that was just the way it worked and it was better to get used to the idea.</p><p>The Ravenclaw had been more interested in exactly how his condition worked, though she kept tripping over polite ways to phrase questions, and found herself only rewarded with snide remarks. Eventually Ron threatened to hex her if she did not ask the question normally and Dean if he did not give her a straight answer. Parvati had a hand on her wand, but it seemed everyone allowed it. <em>Probably couldn't take him in a duel anyway.</em></p><p>"How is the Unicorn blood keeping you alive?" she asked. "If you prefer to be considered alive, of course-"</p><p>"Well, think about how Quirrell was using it a few years ago. He was trying to keep Voldemort's soul attached to him, but he already had a soul. You can't normally keep two whole souls in one body-"</p><p>"Wait, two whole souls?" Hannah asked. This conversation taking right after they came back from the Bulstrode property, Parvati and her boyfriend were still looking at her weirdly. "Is there any way you could have a part of a soul-"</p><p>"Yes, in the course of our research into this phenomenon, we discovered a very rare if not entirely fictional-"</p><p>"There's some merit to the idea," the Gryffindor witch argued. "I happen to think this is what Dumbledore meant by-"</p><p>"More to the point, Quirrell was trying to do the impossible. Containing two souls in their entirety will almost certainly result in one defeating the other, and if nothing else, he needed a binding agent. The blood of a perfectly innocent creature like the unicorn is a blessing in and of itself, but the curse for taking it is inescapable. How do you think it could save you from the brink of death if your skull had been nearly pulverized by a flung piece of masonry?"</p><p>Hermione's eyes widened.</p><p>"Oh, no..."</p><p>"I'm afraid it was exactly that. Properly, medically, I would have died there, but as long as my soul was bound to my corpse, by some definitions, I could be said to still live." He glared at Parvati before continuing as if expecting her to interrupt. "I suspect the Headmaster did not want me to be treated badly by the other students, but he also might have been interested to see what would happen. I am unable to fault him for preserving my life as I can make no argument as to why I would have preferred being dead, nor was it any direct decision of his, though the academic nature of my case could not be ignored as a motivation." To Ron, it sounded like he had rehearsed that, or at least it was something he had gone over with his girlfriend to the point where they could talk about it neutrally.</p><p>"Well... there's no fixing it, is there?" Hannah asked with a hope he had not expected of her. "I would think you would have looked through everything..."</p><p>"We did. We even looked into horcruxes, and even though I still have a soul to split, I really only could have made one when I was properly alive. Do you know how soul rending works?" She shook her head. <em>Not like anyone else does.</em></p><p>"The short version is that your body's natural connection to your soul is nearly unshakable. You would have to fracture your soul countless times before it started to shake, and then it could quite literally fall apart, but only as you died." Dean sighed. "There is very little research supporting this, and this is all theoretical, but if I were to break off a piece of my soul, which hangs onto my body as if by a thread, I would almost certainly die. Because of the damage that's already been done, I've had to limit my use of dark magic."</p><p>Hermione seemed to understand that point better than anyone else. Ron remembered that she and Terry had been working on a generalized theory of magic. He was not quite sure what they were on about, but that was how it was going to have to be. His skill set had nothing to do with that kind of Ravenclaw bollocks. If anything, he was going to learn a few more tricks once he could apparate with multiple people at once, and if he did not die before then, he might move on to the mind arts. Hannah could shield herself, he knew, but no one else apart from Luna had any idea about it.</p><p>He had set Harper and Macmillan to reconnaissance, and they accepted the task with as much apprehension as eagerness to get out of there. They could be kept abreast of each other's developments by the mental link, which helped tremendously, though he had asked Lovegood if she could refrain from picking around too much. Thus far neither of them had shown any sign of returning to their previous allegiances. Most of the adults were out most of the day, though they at least told him what their plans were. Quietly, he reckoned he had either proved he was thinking far enough ahead to take care of himself, or that he was simply rebellious enough to take matters into his own hands if not sufficiently rewarded with information. Part of that was due to his upbringing, he supposed.</p><p>None of his brothers or his late sister had ever cause to view the Ministry as an illegitimate institution, if anything, it was the opposite, but their father was forthcoming with stories of his workplace. They were aware of most of the problems from a young age, and all but Percy had grown at least a little cynical about the thought of solving them. <em>I'd always wondered how he'd gotten sorted into Gryffindor.</em></p><p>It was something he had realized was a problem with him. He was not very good at figuring that sort of thing out himself; mostly it came from the problems he bounced off other people. Mafalda had lived in Belfast most of her life and was no stranger to issues of sovereignty, at least as much as children discussed those kinds of things, but she viewed every government as the fault of whoever was governed. He found that out while complaining about the <em>Prophet </em>being at the behest of the Ministry, which was corrupt, though that almost went without saying. When she objected he remembered saying that there was no voting the people of the land could do to counteract the Department, though her expression suggested she did not have voting in mind.</p><p>"Ron, I need you for a moment," Hermione said, interrupting his thinking. "It's about the fourth-years." She shut the door behind her.</p><p>"Yeah? Luna can prob'ly still-"</p><p>"It's fine. I would be able to detect her if she were listening." She continued as though she did not notice his expression. "I think one of them might be playing both sides."</p><p>"Yeah, we've been over that. I've asked her not to snoop around in their heads too much, but they were both against us a while back, and there's been the odd sign here and there. We ended up having to search them, but I made her search for only the most specific things. I'm not sure she gets why people don't like it when she pokes around, but she was willing to go along with it." He thought for a moment. "Did you see something?"</p><p>"Ron, it's Luna," she whispered. "She's been asking the strangest questions of Hannah lately... not the kind of strange you expect. It's things about being a werewolf... she shouldn't know that, because Hannah's good enough at Occlumency to keep her out, and no one else would have said anything." She looked around a moment. "We told her not to bring it up, but..."</p><p>"D'you reckon she's working with one of the others?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "Might be she didn't really ask Harper about his loyalties, or she just didn't tell me."</p><p>"Well, without her having checked their minds and reliably reported the results, we can't entirely rule it out." She looked around. "Did you trust her because she's a witch?"</p><p>"No-" he started back, annoyed. Hermione leaned back slightly.</p><p>"I mean, it happens, I know, I wouldn't have blamed you if you had, because even when I was in primary school my teachers used to look straight to the boys if there were ever a disciplinary-" She sighed. "I just want to know what your reasoning was for trusting her. I shouldn't have started by suggesting something... silly." He shrugged.</p><p>" 's fine. Her family actually lives pretty close to where I- well, where I used to live. We knew each other growing up, but we didn't see each other much. Bein' honest, I prob'ly just believed everything my brothers and everyone else said about her. Pretty recently, though, we went to her house with her dad, and if she wanted to spring a trap on us, that would've been the time."</p><p>"Did you get along with girls when you were a kid?" he asked. The question seemed to surprise her. "I mean, I might not have any right to be asking-"</p><p>"Well, not really. We were never interested in the same things, as you might imagine, and whenever I talked to someone, it would be a boy. Generally, and this is not meant to be insulting or limiting to-" She must have noticed his expression. <em>Noticed it before I did.</em> "It was not as if the boys were all into academics, because especially at that age it seemed most of them were into football, but there would always be one or two who were at the top of the class. The girls were almost all in the middle, and then there would be a few boys below them. I'm not sure why this is, but it's consistent with my experience so far."</p><p>"Maybe 'cause you were always at the top of the class, the other girls didn't ever get to know you," he said, thinking of Luna. From what few personal questions he had ever asked Terry, it was the same with him. Apparently he spent 'far too long' in his own words thinking he was too smart for everyone else, which was why he never learned basic social skills and barely made any friends when he did come to Hogwarts. <em>She grew up in a magical community, though. It was just a few of us, but... well, maybe being weird counts for double when everyone else is the same.</em></p><p>Hermione declined to entertain his supposition.</p><p>"I'll trust your judgement on her," she decided. She said something under her breath.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"It's nothing."</p><p>"Well, I heard something." <em>No sense in prying up her secrets. Can't ask her not to snoop around in my head if I badger her about every little thing. </em>"Reckon it's not important, though."</p><p>The witch left the room. Ron was really starting to hate the revolving series of discussions that always seemed to exclude more people than they included, but it could not be helped if they did not all trust each other. Trust was something they would have to build over time.</p><p>Harper and Macmillan came back after dark, around the time Hermione was explaining the plan to McGonagall, which had been an interesting experience to say the least. It was odd at first how she did not react as they told her what all they had done, but he guessed they should not have expected she would have them follow school rules when going after Bulstrode's wife, though a brief look of concern ran across her face. <em>Prob'ly because we're pretty sure she's been living under the Imperius for years.</em></p><p>Leading the two of them off to where he had last seen Lovegood, they found themselves before a draped painting. Moving the curtain proved ill-advised.</p><p>"BLOOD TRAITORS! CURSED FILTH WANDERING ABOUT IN OUR ANCESTRAL HOME, THEIR PUTRID MAGIC-"</p><p>Luna waved it closed.</p><p>"Sirius said that she's his mother."</p><p>"Less than pleasant, I should say," the Hufflepuff wizard muttered. Something about the phrase 'blood traitor' seemed to bother him. "I saw a handful of German wizards."</p><p>"Where?" Harper asked, impatient. <em>I thought I'd be asking the questions.</em></p><p>"They were in the muggle part of the city, where the scarcely have I been before. I believe it was Piccadilly."</p><p>"They're here about the decision, then," Ron reasoned, having heard more about it than he had ever needed. "Crouch prob'ly didn't even stop to think about it going both ways." <em>Hope they dig something up and make trouble for him. </em>A leader, however, was not permitted to hope.</p><p>"Most likely, they would be here to verify the claim that there are no longer Death Eaters in Britain," the Slytherin said. "It will take more than one team to search the whole island in an appreciable amount of time- but now is our chance to be away."</p><p>"Should we be surprised?" Macmillan asked. "Truly, I have no idea, not an inkling resides within my mind. Fleeing before being mistaken for a dark wizard."</p><p>"Any among our numbers could be so mistaken," Harper continued, eyes glowering. "Of course, the muggles have a saying; a leper changes not his spots merely by crossing the road-"</p><p>"We could say the same about you," Ron said. "He's got no right to suspect you, you've got no right to suspect him. I reckon you're right about leaving, but we'll have to get the whole damn Order out and set up somewhere else." Luna smiled briefly and he decided to interpret it to mean that she approved of his intervention in their argument. <em>Either that, or it's because she's on board with leaving. </em>He truly had not wanted to flee, but it seemed there was really nothing to be gained except getting as many people as they could to make the trip with them. "The place to start is the Irish school. Well, before that, we can pick up the Quibbler readers."</p><p>"Is the warding nearly complete?" the Hufflepuff asked. "I had wondered if there remained a glimmer of hope for resistance."</p><p>"Much to your disappointment, to be sure, there is none," Harper insisted. "Perhaps they have their reasons, but we can do nothing for those content to rest in their bindings." Even as someone else said it, Ron still felt like they were unfairly characterizing the people of the island, but there was no other way around it, and more than anything else, it was the sales and readership of the <em>Prophet. </em>The price was still about what people expected for premium news at the beginning of the year, but then it went up- it was a response to the amount that people were buying it. <em>The demand market is paying more than ever for absolute lies.</em></p><p>"Where are we going, then?" Luna asked. <em>We can't expect the whole damn Order to just go with us wherever we want to go.</em></p><p>"We'll get McGonagall in on the discussion. She's got to have some idea about where we can go. I know it'd be best to find some place people are ready to fight." He thought of how the Death Eaters had supposedly been spreading throughout Europe, planting seeds, though their plans were ill-fated. Even if they could drum up support among national governments and rouse the rabble, they would just be arrested as terrorists in a matter of days.</p><p>In the other room it looked like their old Transfiguration teacher was invested in the discussion she was having with Hermione. Hannah was paying attention and taking notes for some reason. Ron almost felt bad for interrupting.</p><p>"We need to move forward with our plans for evacuation," Harper announced, doing it for him. <em>Can't let him keep that up. </em>"We thought it best to include everyone present in the discussion." Somehow he managed to make it sound snide.</p><p>"I should think, Mr. Harper, it is about time to have that discussion. From everything Miss Granger has said, China would be the ideal choice. We could expect to be almost entirely shielded from both our old enemies and various magical governments. All the better, the Xian, I understand, function as a defensive force that could serve as a bulwark against even the most powerful dark wizards."</p><p>It seemed it was decided, just like that.</p><p>"So..." he trailed off.</p><p>"Yet I must disagree." She turned to Hermione. "Perhaps you have more experience with the region than I. Perhaps you are right on most counts, and China could serve as a base of operations where national interests would not molest us." There was a pause. "I have more experience than you with the Dark Lord Voldemort, and no one who intends to deal with him on this side of the planet or any other will take the slightest chances with him. The intelligence our combined minds represent would dwarf what you showed them, and if they made the mistake of causing problems for him without that information once, they will not make it a second time."</p>
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<a name="section0036"><h2>36. The Central Kingdom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At Professor McGonagall's discretion, which she expected the rest of the Order would follow, the flight would take place as soon as possible, and their destination was Uganda. Ron and Hannah were to go to the Irish school to see if there was anyone there who would follow them, any of their parents, really anyone remotely willing. They would look like Death Eaters fleeing, but there was nothing else to be done. Though she had said no more on the subject, Hermione still thought returning to China would be a good idea, but she could not hide her excitement to be going to an entirely different continent where a different understanding of magic took hold. <em>Under the circumstances, though...</em></p><p>"Where are the others going?" she asked Ron as he got a few things together. He had been traveling lightly, to say the least.</p><p>"Luna, Harper, and Macmillan are going with me. I don't know where you're going, but I'm guessing you're with the sensible adults." She could not quite tell if he were making fun of her or not, though she doubted using Legilimency would help. "Once we're done, we'll be off after you. Dean and Parvati are going to find some of the Death Eaters in North Africa, and they'll be bringing Bulstrode's wife with them."</p><p>If either of them still had a problem with that plan, their faces did not reveal it.</p><p>"Are they going to go along with it?"</p><p>"The trick is getting the right ones. We know from Neville who learned it from Malfoy that the blood purists like his old mates are more likely to help. Bulstrode's one of the worst of them; prob'ly been itching to do something with the Stone for years."</p><p>"Why haven't they taken it yet?"</p><p>"Can't be sure, but I can't be sure they haven't. I reckon they're up to their slimy necks in whatever tangle of loyalties they're pretending to have." <em>Well, that's another Slytherin stereotype, but for criminal organizations, it actually makes sense.</em></p><p>"Is Dean going to tell them about the Horcruxes?"</p><p>"He's said he won't, but I don't believe him."</p><p>"Do we want the Death Eaters to know about them?"</p><p>"Well, what little we know is that their boss prob'ly didn't make any. Can't have made it this far with the dark magic and the killing without doing a bloody good job of soul-rending, but that's all we have." He walked out the door, not looking at her. "As far as I'm concerned, they're still one enemy together. It's not that much better that he's alive to get their knickers in a twist, and if he died, they'd still be pretty powerful, but there's some way of dealing with them."</p><p>Without a word more, he was gone. <em>I really should learn to Apparate. </em>Going back inside, it seemed all the adults had gathered in one place, perhaps for the first time. Professor McGonagall had just been through how the Weasleys and Sirius Black had already been informed of their plans. <em>Apparently they suspected we were going to have to leave. </em>The basic rationale for English Africa was that they would be outside the European jurisdiction, but the Death Eaters had already started to set up a network of connections, meaning there were targets to attack. Some of the members had been mostly unsuccessfully trying to keep track of their actions on the continent, but it seemed everywhere they went, the dark wizards they were tracking had just left.</p><p>Gathered were Alastor Moody, who she understood to be a retired Auror, an old wizard who looked like Dumbledore, a tiny wizard in a top hat she knew only as Diggle, Emmeline Vance, a shorter man who smelled like alcohol and tobacco at the same time, Remus Lupin, the easily identified Nymphadora Tonks, and a witch who looked like her mother. Hermione was aware there were other members, like Hagrid and the Weasleys, but she happened to know they were on the continent, for however little time they could remain there. Her own parents having already fled, she was less concerned about them. <em>In China they should expect that no Death Eaters or Ministry personnel will come after them. The Imperial Ministers have no reason to accept the decision, as there are currently no rebellious factions they need help tracking down.</em></p><p>As expected, the British Ministry was making a nominal show of aiding in tracking down Grindelwald, whom the Order had already denounced. <em>Well, with Professor Dumbledore being the founder, it most likely was not necessary, but it's all for show anyway. Without his old allies, he's not nearly as powerful as Voldemort.</em></p><p>The portkey took the form of an old hat, though she wondered what had happened to the Sorting Hat from Hogwarts. <em>Can I afford to be thinking about that now? I suppose the school's magic would no longer be functional, but if it had been enchanted before that...</em></p><p>"Miss Granger, you will be going first," Professor McGonagall said without providing a reason. She, Diggle, the shorter wizard, and Tonks grabbed the brim of the hat at the same time. She had the same sick feeling going through and landed in what seemed to be a mud puddle.</p><p>"<em>Scourgify,"</em> Tonks incanted as she looked around. It appeared they were in a thick forest, though she could faintly hear the sounds of a city. "That's odd."</p><p>"What's odd?" she asked. Turning around, she beheld a large, white building with arches and columns everywhere, constructed in the Imperial style. <em>I suppose that is. It could be another one of the Black properties.</em></p><p>"The portkey is not returning," the other witch said, touching it again. "Professor McGongall said that she got it from one of your little friends, and it was meant to be enchanted so that it would return every time you touched it. The old families used to use these all the time for voyages..."</p><p>"I'm sorry, it's not really my area of expertise. As an Auror, you would know more about-"</p><p>"Well, I can cast the enchantment, but I can't tell you what's going on here. <em>Portus. </em>This should get us back, but why..."</p><p>"No time to worry about that, luv. Go on back and tell 'em all what happened." <em>I would believe her if she said she wished to know what happened before making the trip back to explain it. </em>The issue confused her apparently most of all. Diggle, by contrast, seemed to take it as a matter of course as he walked up to the building. <em>Are portkeys known to behave this way?</em></p><p>She had some understanding that the Order would announce its presence in Uganda as a means of collecting dissenters from various countries, but this would make a target out of their base. If Sirius and Charlie were correct about the Magicians of Light, they could be persuaded to at least go after Grindelwald, as he presented a threat to secrecy, but they had had an eye on Sub-Saharan Africa for decades. Cursing her lack of a full understanding of the situation, as well as Ron for being right about how they would not be told anything, she followed the older wizard to what she assumed was the Black property.</p><p>"Is this place unplottable?" she asked as soon as she reached the ample porch. "I assume there are muggle-repelling charms?"</p><p>"I believe so, though in truth I have not checked. Old Doge, Bode, and Podmore are still on the island, and I was near enough to remaining before I received an owl. Albus had me watching this little house in Cokeworth for a fifth of my life, and I'd thought I was going to be there the rest of it." He managed to get the wards on the door to show up before cursing under his breath. "I'd made my peace with the monotony of it, but I knew my skills would go to rot like that."</p><p>Hermione thought about asking what he had been doing there or what Dumbledore had been thinking, but she was more interested in the wards. They were truly ancient, though they could not have been placed before the nineteenth century. There was continued reference to the stars and constellations.</p><p>"Andromeda..." she trailed off as she muttered the name of the constellation under her breath. "It seems to make reference to a witch who has only just been born. It would have been the early fifties, though..." She remembered the Black family tapestry had a scorch mark in between Bellatrix Lestrange and Draco's mother, who were born in 1951 and 1955 respectively. <em>If I am to regard this as an example of their naming convention, Andromeda would have been their disowned sister, presumably. The property could have been built shortly after her birth, which would have been under the Uganda Protectorate. </em>"Excuse me, sir, do you know anything about this residence?"</p><p>"I do, as a matter of fact. It was constructed during the sovereignty of Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II, who would start as Kabaka of Buganda, a kingdom dating back to the fourteenth century, and later become the first ceremonial president of Uganda. This was a relatively stable period, especially in reference to the succeeding-"</p><p>"Oy!" They looked over to see the other wizard had apparently stunned an African man. "Don't think there are muggle charms on- can't find a wand on this wanker."</p><p>"Just a moment, Mundungus, Hermione happens to specialize in memory charms. She'll be of more use to you at the moment." Feeling slightly put down, she walked back over as Diggle started to put up what sounded like the unplottable enchantment. <em>He may be right about this place being light on security. I'm not entirely sure we knew where we were going. </em>Waving her wand over the stunned man, his face still wearing a shocked expression, she could tell he was a muggle, but decided not to pry into his thoughts too much. <em>When the Blacks lived here, they might have had contact with normal people.</em></p><p>Casting a simple memory charm and removing his memories from the past few minutes, she levitated the unconscious victim of circumstance to the edge of the forest, laying a branch on his head, and ennervating him before disappearing. <em>I need to brew more invisibility potions- pity I haven't had access to a burner or a cauldron for the better part of a year.</em></p><p>It was weird that Tonks had still not reappeared, but she supposed that was something else she had not been told. <em>Here I thought Professor McGonagall was trying to bribe Ron to stay with information.</em> She decided the idea did not paint an excessively charitable picture of her friend, but the fact that she would be dumped in a foreign country with no instructions and just not have a problem with that either made her look incredibly good at improvisation or not terribly important. She frowned as the wards reappeared alone, keying herself into the wards.</p><p>"Where's everyone else?"</p><p>"Did we not tell you? There are going to be multiple bases all around the world. Wouldn't want to put all the phoenix flames in one nest." <em>That at least makes sense- it's what the Death Eaters already started about a year ago. </em>"We don't announce all of them, just the one McGonagall is leading in New Zealand."</p><p>"Why there?" she asked. "Are there Black properties everywhere?"</p><p>"No. We used old family properties where we could, but a few locations had to be bought new. We went here because Andromeda Tonks, formerly Black is my mother and I could pass through the blood wards. She was expunged from the family, as you may have noticed, but this was a ceremonial gift of a doting father. I think they genuinely just overlooked it."</p><p>Hermione nodded. There were complications between the early fifties and such a time as she would have been expunged that might have led them to distance themselves from Uganda. The two of them each took a seat in what looked to be a drawing room. An enchanted tea set slid across the table.</p><p>"Where are there Black properties? I assume there are Longbottom Properties as well?"</p><p>"I can't tell you where all they had a vacation home, though I asked and they don't have one in America, because it was turned to ice and shattered in the autumn of 1780. I know even less about the Longbottoms. Officially, the Lady of the House is staying behind. We want them to think that we never had 12 Grimmauld Place, so that we can use it as a landing point when we invade the country."</p><p>"Invade?"</p><p>"I hope it doesn't come to that." She grimaced a little. "No one remaining in Britain has any idea of the plans, and McGonagall's been trying to keep it from the rest of us as much as possible, but well, yesterday I might have tripped my way into a meeting between her and my mother." It was an odd turn of phrase, but Hermione ignored it.</p><p>"How are we going to get strong enough to invade?" she asked. <em>I know we're not already. </em>"Are we relying on magical research?" Tonks shook her head.</p><p>"Even if I knew what they had in mind right now, I wouldn't be able to say for certain. Whilst we're here, we have to do all we can." The wizards joined them in the drawing room. "Is the place secure?" she asked.</p><p>"Don't think even I could get in, Miss," Mundungus answered. "Hope we don't plan on bein' a buncha bleedin' heroes out here."</p><p>"Not really," the Auror said. The Ravenclaw rolled her eyes. <em>Assuming I have the correct interpretation of 'being heroes', there's something else where I was not consulted. </em>She tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous for three adults, and even more so for her former Transfiguration teacher to consider her experience relevant. "My mother is one of the liasons who knows where multiple locations are. She'll be taking the closed Floo between here and the New Zealand base to see if we've made any progress in the war effort."</p><p>"Well, well, well, what do you bloody well mean war effort? We're not soldiers."</p><p>"No, we're not," Hermione agreed. "We're also not under orders. That means we need to think for ourselves. We need to see what needs to be done and do it." It looked like Diggle had an objection to an approach that open ended, but no one else was contradicting her assessment. Shortly after they had kidnapped Absentia Bulstrode, in the middle of a lesson from Professor McGonagall, Luna announced that her father had decided to flee to Canada. <em>I hope he can set up a new office there and keep publishing. Without him, whatever hope we had of winning is no more.</em></p><p>"The Death Eaters are an organization that everyone knows exists," Tonks said, seeming to know what Hermione was thinking. It entered her head that the other witch was capable of Legilimency, but her shields would have at least felt it. <em>I'm being stupid. Before last year I would have just thought 'wow, you read my mind'. </em>"No publication could ever effectively run interference for them, because they claim credit for their attacks and without obliviations at an unprecedented scale, people cannot be made to forget their neighbors being slaughtered for being the wrong blood quantum."</p><p>"Where are you going with this?" Mundungus asked. It seemed he already had an idea.</p><p>"What we need to do is counter the Ministry," she explained. "We publicly decry Grindelwald, Voldemort, and Crouch's government, and people start to see there's another option."</p><p>"Why start now?" he asked, throwing his hands up. "They've had all this time to see we're the only ones following the rules, wondering why we're still at it."</p><p>"That's why we were sent here," Hermione said, making the connection. <em>That's also part of why we weren't told very much. If we have any moles in the Order, we cannot allow the whole organization's plan to be compromised. </em>"We're not running from the conflict in Britain, we're running to conflicts elsewhere."</p><p>"It's not enough to just be against everything awful," Diggle said. "We have to work smarter than that to make a name for ourselves. We set out to defeat Voldemort and the Death Eaters in the last war, and on paper, we basically failed. Because the Potters' deaths were seen as a tragedy, rather than a sacrifice, everyone forgot that they were Order members and we were never awarded credit for our role."</p><p>"What'd we even do?" the other wizard asked. "You mean to tell me we set them and their little son up to get killed by Voldemort? Might be I let someone take the fall for me once or twice-"</p><p>"We would have if we had no other choice," the older wizard continued. "Their son was meant to be able to defeat him, but Dumbledore's interpretation of the prophecy sent them into hiding. Had they survived, or even just their son-"</p><p>"There's no point in going over hypotheticals like that," Hermione interjected. "I've tried. There's no means of traveling through time either; McGonagall said the Department of Mysteries canceled the program-"</p><p>"Then what are we doing here?" Tonks asked. Everyone was quiet for a moment. "I think you all have... points. There's some reason the four of us were put together and sent here. We need to find out what the situation here is and what we're doing about it. We have to assume we don't have a moment to spare."</p><p>"So we just muck about in other people's countries telling them what to do?"</p><p>"No," Hermione answered firmly. <em>He's complaining, but he has a point. </em>"We have to be very careful to only help people in ways that don't come down to matters of opinion. We can't just learn what their problems are, we have to learn how to help them without taking control of the situation." She sighed. "That's going to be harder for some of us than others. It's also going to be hard coming to any kind of agreement about what we need to do." Diggle seemed to be basically picking it up.</p><p>"I was a Slytherin, many years ago. As to the reason we were chosen, I had only suspected the Order wanted a diversity of skills and knowledge on each team. Mundungus, I presume you were a Gryffindor?"</p><p>"I'm not above running when it's necessary," he said almost immediately. Quietly, the Ravenclaw witch acknowledged that she had assumed for a minute he was one of the Weasley relatives, though the red hair might have fed into that perception. Ron had told her there were a few others here and there, but his immediate family was starting to look like the main branch. His father was supposed to have taken over as head of the family ten years earlier, but his Great Aunt Muriel never quite 'did her bit and died'. The expression he wore when he said it looked more like bemusement than resentment.</p><p>"We'll keep that in mind," Tonks said. "I know that in the Mountains of the Moon, we should expect to find Uagadou-"</p><p>"Ah, yes, founded in 999, originally a prison of the design of the great Kakama, heir to the Kitara Empire-"</p><p>"Where did you bleedin' read all this?" the other wizard asked, interrupting Diggle. He stared with a pursed lip before answering.</p><p>"When Albus Dumbledore sets you to a ten year stakeout, you can afford to check out a book every so often," he explained. "Anyway, I have some idea of the school's history and I believe you may be right in suggesting that we start there, as opposed to with the local government, which happens to be a conference of wizard elders." He squinted. "Would you happen to be a Hufflepuff?" The Auror nodded.</p><p>"Tonks, I have to ask you about-" Hermione started.</p><p>"Ebony?" she asked. "You're not the first." She frowned a little. "There's not much to tell, really. When she was in Hogwarts properly, she never had anyone's attention; she just quietly did her work and was basically at the top of the class. She probably came up with the name Ebony so that her former teachers would assume she was a different person, perhaps a younger sister, though I suspect she just confunded someone every time there was an issue."</p><p>"Oh, that... well, that makes sense."</p><p>As the discussion continued, she supposed she should not have banked so much hope on the incredible insight an old schoolmate of one of her mortal enemies could provide. <em>If anything, I should have asked Hagrid what Tom Riddle was like, since Ron said they were in the same House. </em>Looking over to Tonks again, she could have sworn the witch's hair had changed color, but she could not imagine asking about it, so she left the matter alone.</p>
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<a name="section0037"><h2>37. Mafalda's Machinations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hannah found herself staring into a mirror, slowing down for the first time all day. She had some understanding some Order members would be staying behind in the United Kingdom, come what may, which was probably death, but everyone else had fled. <em>We never had a third side. There were two sides, and we were trying to make some kind of position of sanity out of it.</em></p><p>"Are you alright?" Ron asked, still a touch concerned for her after she narrowly dodged a killing curse mere hours ago. Getting to the Irish school was the first challenge, but even though there were no British Ministry officials on the island, there were still plenty of people who wanted her dead, if for no other reason than because she was a dark creature. The two of them had been talking with a group of students while the adults were gathering in Magical Dublin to make the announcement, the public outcry against all the different types of evils in the wizarding world, and that they were not leaving, but expanding. That had been a particular sticking point with the student group, and it was enough for some of the bolder ones to suggest killing the messengers.</p><p>"I'm fine. It didn't hit me." <em>I just heard the sound. I didn't know it made a sound.</em></p><p>The two of them were staying in a guest room at the school, which they were visiting legally, at least on paper. Hannah had been worried about Crouch pulling out all the political stops to get the Irish to extradite them, or at least her, as she was wanted for mass murder, but things were basically going well for him all over Europe and he could not afford to be seen to be so troubled by a fifteen year old witch. His government had been putting posters up everywhere, but the idea of declaring her an enemy of the state was almost cartoonish. Ron had expressed his disappointment in Xenophilius Lovegood for penning that Crouch had an obsession with a minor.</p><p>"I reckon we should go see Mafalda when we've got the chance. The others are sleeping." That much was true. Students at Seneolas lived in what looked like low huts from the outside, but were actually a complex network of folded space. Garaidh, a friend of Mafalda's, had apparently said it was easy to get confused by it your first year, but eventually most students stopped trying to work out how it functioned. Luna, Ernie, and Harper seemed to be next to them, though, and she supposed that could be because they were guests as well.</p><p>"Are you sure? We might get attacked again- we can't just fight back, either, because we were the ones who came here. It would look like we just invaded to fight Slytherin refugees or the other kind of people who don't agree with us." She sighed. "You can't apparate out-"</p><p>"They put the jinxes around the country, not through it." He shook his head a bit. "I know we're only here because they let us be here. I just can't- no, wait a tick, I think I've still got the mirror." He took a mirror out of his bag without explaining what it was. "Mafalda." Her heart beat three times. "No response."</p><p>"She could be sleeping." <em>We could be sleeping. </em>"You need to rest; you're going stir-crazy."</p><p>He exhaled a bit before flopping down on the bed. Before leaving, Hermione had forbidden him from making jokes about the fact that at the Irish school, the huts for five boy or five girls would each have one large bed, and the guest rooms were no exception, though Luna, Ernie, and Harper had insisted on being separate from the two of them. The witch leading them to their sleeping arrangements had crinkled her nose a bit, but nothing more. Hannah gingerly sat down next to him, thinking about what might happen next and whether or not she was ready for it.</p><p>"You're right," he said at length. "I reckon I am pretty tired." He straightened up on the bed and she found herself snuggled next to him, her head resting on his chest. <em>Maybe it's better this way. I did want to have moments like this. </em>She doubted he really noticed he had an arm around her, likely more for mutual comfort than any kind of performative display of chivalry, but it was not only in the purely physical sense she felt comforted. He had problems, she had problems, the two of them together had problems, but it was never long between reminders that he cared about her.</p><p>"Hey..." she whispered, as though someone else might hear. "Do you remember the time I had boils all over my face?" He shook his head, though she knew he had to remember it.</p><p>"I couldn't really remember what you looked like without them. I never looked." It had been a strange meeting, but it was theirs. "What happened again?"</p><p>"I messed up on a potion. I imagine what Hermione meant was that if I didn't want him to see it, then I would have to drink it." She let out a soft chuckle.</p><p>"You drank an unfinished potion?"</p><p>"It would never have hurt me that badly. She apologized really nicely later on, but sometimes I think she assumed I would never be stupid enough to just take her seriously like that."</p><p>"I don't think you're stupid."</p><p>"Of course you don't," Hannah whispered back. "You would never think that."</p><p>"I mean it, though, I'm not just saying it," he muttered. "Your ideas are really helpful. It doesn't matter if you think they're mad."</p><p>She could not have said when she went to sleep, only that when she woke up, they were no longer in the same position. Their backs were touching, though she could not have said what that meant about them, nor was she terribly concerned. Ron, for once, was up earlier and seemed like he had something to do. Getting out of bed, she got ready as quickly as she could, but he was already out of the room as she finished up.</p><p>Following him out the door, they were in an impossibly green landscape, or at least it was impossible as long as spring never came so early in Ireland. She caught sight of him crossing what looked to be a great outdoor amphitheater. <em>It's not fair that he always gets ready so quickly. Well, maybe I would be out first every so often if he shaved.</em></p><p>That had been one of the weirder things she had learned about everyday wizarding life. There were French wizards, like Capet, who swore by enchanted razors, but she was relatively sure Terry mentioned a shaving charm at one point. <em>Well, that might have been because he wanted Hermione to notice.</em></p><p>Ron ducked into another hut a few paces ahead of her and he was in Mafalda's quarters, where it appeared she had only just woken up. Hannah was still surprised it was so easy to get around the school, but apparently it worked sort of like the mysterious room, where she could just speak a name and pass into the correct rounded, stone hut. There were no words as she looked around the room, where she noticed a puddle of blood on the floor. The Gryffindor had already seen it.</p><p>"You want to tell me about this, Mafalda?" he asked the waking witch. She seemed as surprised to see it as he was, but did not say anything immediately, looking around for her wand.</p><p>"Where are the other girls who usually sleep in this room?" Hannah asked.</p><p>"They were here when I went to sleep... Cassie might have... where's my wand?"</p><p>"<em>Accio Mafalda's wand.</em>" No familiar wooden instrument flew to her hand. "It's not in this room. I imagine whoever committed this crime used your wand. Ron, cast the footprint charm."</p><p>"Damn, what was the incantation again? Vestigial something?"</p><p>"I believe <em>vestigia </em>is the Latin for footprints, so that works at least," Mafalda explained, getting out of bed. "I really have no idea whose blood this is."</p><p>"The first suspects are the other witches from this room," the wizard said, looking down now at glowing footprints on the floor, leading out. "There has to be some reason they didn't wake you up." <em>He's talking to her with this... familiarity. It's like they have not just spent months and months apart. I guess he could just be focusing on the task at hand, like I should be.</em></p><p>Hannah did not, however, entirely throw out the possibility that the younger witch was taking the place of his dead sister.</p><p>"How do we get in contact with your roommates?" she asked, trying to be helpful. Coming up with her famous ideas which apparently were not all terrible was difficult when she was so far out of her element. <em>I'm only a few hundred miles from where I have lived all my life and I know nothing about this place.</em></p><p>"Usually I just wait until I see them in class," Mafalda confessed. "I really have no idea how to get in contact with them. Cassie saw me using the mirror once, but I'm pretty sure-"</p><p>"Tell us about her," Ron said. Hannah had heard about the mirrors the two of them had been using to communicate. <em>That could be why it seems he is familiar with this place already. </em>"Is she a blood purist?"</p><p>"She was from Slytherin, but I don't think so. She was one of the pragmatists, though there weren't that many of them. Mostly if you were a pragmatist, you kept it secret and pretended to take a side." The wizard's ears reddened a little. <em>That might mean he's frustrated.</em></p><p>"Well, we're not getting anywhere with these footprints. Where's your friend? We could use his help."</p><p>"Garaidh? I haven't seen him since yesterday. Usually he's at breakfast, though he might be sleeping..." She looked around. "This isn't going to work. We don't have enough time to investigate what happened. You came to evacuate us, right? Anyone who would go with you? Well, this just means you need to bring me too." Ron's eyes narrowed. "Just tell me where we're going first, and then we can get everyone together."</p><p>"All right. We're going to America," he said. "Where's everyone else?"</p><p>"They won't trust the information if it comes from you- I need to go get them-" Mafalda started to turn to go.</p><p><em>"Locomotor Mortis." </em>Hannah was too shocked to react except to put her hands to her mouth, disappointing herself. The young witch on the ground had her wand out, but was disarmed quickly. "Nice try; you really had me going there."</p><p>"How did you-"</p><p>"You're not my friend; you just know a lot about her. One of the things you don't know is that she'd never go anywhere without her wand, and you gave up on it too quickly. That was about when I decided you were suspicious. So I lied and said we were going to America to see what you'd do next." He looked to the Hufflepuff witch. "A few years ago, Hermione said we needed to use codes to recognize each other. We stopped using them around the time we met you, but that was because I knew her well enough that I could just tell."</p><p>"Ron, I think whoever this is knows about the mirror. She might have been using it to contact you this whole time-" They both watched the appearance of the witch shift into that of a wizard her age. "Seamus!" she announced uselessly.</p><p>"Yes, me- no, I didn't have the mirror the whole time."</p><p>"Where's Mafalda? Why did you take her place?"</p><p>"She and her friends are already up- we wake earlier here than we did at Hogwarts- we're not your enemies; we just needed leverage on you. We have to know that you're committed to fighting the Death Eaters and you weren't just running off." <em>I'll ignore most of the objections I have to that.</em></p><p>"We're not running; we're retreating. If we stay in Europe, they'll get to us as soon as they're done with Grindelwald," she explained. "You're welcome to come too, if you like."</p><p>"I'm not going anywhere. They didn't take me on the Austria campaign, so my mission is here." Ron snorted, but declined to reveal what he found funny.</p><p>"Why don't you just join up with Crouch, then?" he asked. "If you don't care what he does with it once he's got all the power in the world, why not help him get more?" He turned away. "He'll find his wand eventually; let's just go."</p><p>Hannah walked off after him, not sure where exactly he was going. <em>He must know where she normally goes to classes or breakfast, whatever comes first. </em>She was kicking herself a little for nearly falling into a trap just because she had not suspected Mafalda would already be up, though she had to give Seamus credit for realizing it would take them some time to wake up. <em>We've been on our own clock for months; of course we haven't been keeping to a disciplined schedule.</em></p><p>They found the younger witch with what looked to be a group of friends at breakfast. She picked out eggs, tomatoes, crispy bacon and beans, all of which she was loading onto a slice of toast before eating it. <em>Is she mad?</em> Her wizard friend was doing the same.</p><p>"Hi, Ron," she said as he approached. "How did you get Hannah back?" <em>That was a controlled reaction.</em></p><p>"It's a long story. She did a lot of the getting back herself." There were three wizards and two witches. She went ahead and assumed one of them was Cassie and one was Garaidh. "What've you been doing?"</p><p>"Well, the blood purists came to pick up their children, mostly, so there's really no more of that faction. Now it's just the anti-dark wizard invasion force and the discontented." Mafalda did not have to indicate her friends. "It was just the four of us for a while, but Dennis decided to give us a try."</p><p>"He's a real fence-sitter," one of the other wizards said. The boy Hannah presumed to be Dennis just raised his hands as if to register that he would broker no argument. "He's been seen with everyone at least once."</p><p>"That may be," their leader conceded. "He's here now, though, and now we know that no other faction would trust him." It was hard to argue with the logic of the Slytherin witch. "Apart from Cassie and myself, he's the only one to come from Hogwarts. He was a Gryffindor." Ron seemed to look inquisitively at the boy for a moment before turning back to Mafalda.</p><p>"So you've basically assembled everyone who might go with us already," he surmised.</p><p>"It's not much, but I can be sure about them, at least. I was inspired by how you, Hermione, and Terry took me in last year, and I realized that I could do the same thing. I realized what everyone was getting wrong was they were just looking at things in terms of enemies and grievances and sides, and no one wanted to do the right thing no matter what. It should have occurred to me earlier that other people might feel the same, so I reached out once I got here and, though I haven't spent a full year here, I still have some people."</p><p>"For me it was something that already happened," Cassie explained. "Last year, when- well, you know what happened with Mafalda, the rest of the House didn't do anything because the perpetrators were of a higher blood quantum. That's literally what they said; they weren't going to get a few pure bloods expelled just so a half blood can feel better."</p><p>"I went to the Ministry school after they made it a requirement to graduate from an accredited school," one of the wizards said. <em>That definitely means he's not Garaidh, and we know he's not Dennis. </em>"Not really a surprise why someone tore the place down. Really just glad I got out when I did." Hannah hung her head.</p><p>"That's probably the first you've said anything, about that, Namundja," the boy she presumed to be Garaidh said. "I was always kind of the odd man around here, bit of an eejit if you ask anyone else."</p><p>"There are more of you, though, aren't there?" Hannah asked. The young wizard nodded.</p><p>"Ever since the whole Grindelwald affair, it's been grand. Most of the folk who wanted an independent Ireland are comin' to realize they're gettin' the exact opposite. Won't just be British jays either; it'll be from all over the continent. I been tellin' 'em that the Ministry's full of Death Eaters. Not sure if it is or not, but it's just about as bad either way."</p><p>"About how many are you?" Ron asked.</p><p>"It's only been a short while, but roughly thirty of us might be willing to get out," Mafalda explained. <em>It doesn't really matter that it has only been as long as you have been a student here, since you're going with us. </em>"Where are we going?"</p><p>"Well, you're going to Belize. It should be pretty quiet there, and a few of the old Hogwarts teachers are going with you." Dennis looked disappointed. <em>Well, you are evacuating...</em></p><p>"Where are you, then?" Garaidh asked.</p><p>"It's better if we don't say," Hannah decided. "I hope that's alright. Professor McGonagall was really insistent on this."</p><p>"We wouldn't be able to do anything with the information," Cassie admitted. "What are we doing in Belize?"</p><p>"You'll find out when you get there," Ron said. "Lovegood's going with you. Get everyone you have and leave as soon as possible."</p><p>The Hufflepuff witch only stared as the younger witches and wizards got up and left. <em>They might not suspect that it's Xenophilius Lovegood who will be accompanying them. The Order needs an information network, and the only way to accomplish that involves having people who will not be suspected. For the Quibbler to be a serious publication, it will need to have writers, and real people will need to attach their names to the articles. Then and only then will there be an alternative.</em></p><p>"I just don't get it," she whispered as they were alone again. "Why do we have to tell people what to think? Isn't it enough that they know the <em>Prophet </em>is lying to them?"</p><p>He took a while before answering. Sometimes he did that. The two of them walked out of the school's wards, and she decided to take the opportunity to see if anyone happened to be following them instead of anticipating an answer. <em>The killing curse yesterday might have been Seamus's trick. It's something he would have been willing to do, leading us on this convoluted plot where people are trying to murder us to give us a false sense of urgency. </em>She vaguely remembered the wizard's mother was an unsuspecting news reader, though he had never denied the return of Voldemort, since that was something almost everyone at Hogwarts had personally witnessed.</p><p>"You're Kingsley Shacklebolt," Ron said as they approached this tall, black wizard.</p><p>"I am. You may better know me as the personal guard to the Minister." Hannah realized it was directed at her.</p><p>"I knew you were an Auror," she said, if a bit defensively. "You came to the prison where they were keeping me every so often." He nodded.</p><p>"I was on Dumbledore's side. I do not believe Crouch ever discovered the truth of my loyalties, least of all my loyalties to him." <em>I should be careful. If they never discovered he was loyal to Dumbledore-</em></p><p>"As long as you're useful, he'll probably never find out. I'd still be looking for jobs," Ron advised, taking what looked like a portkey and handing it to her. In seconds the two of them were in a warm environment. It felt like a jungle and she assumed it was Africa for a moment, but her assumptions could wait. "There's a good reason we need the <em>Quibbler,</em>" he started to explain without preamble. "Try and think of it this way. There's a memory charm that works on entire countries. Crouch knows how to use it. For some reason, Voldemort's not gotten into the same game." <em>I think I know where he's going with this.</em></p><p>"Promise me one thing." He looked back at her. "Don't become like them."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0038"><h2>38. An Evening With Dr. Jodorowski</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Draco had been focusing on his learning as much as he reasonably could. It was no easy task to make up for what he had missed, especially without the help of the former friend he had in Theodore Nott. <em>His motivation still escapes me. He would not have disobeyed an order, resulting in the death of another vassal, unless he had some legitimate reason, and yet as far as I was able to determine, there was no such reason.</em></p><p>He had asked the other vassals, and they had no idea what motivated the sacrifice of Bole, because it had not been necessary for the release of Grindelwald, and though he knew Nott to be a touch overcautious, if nothing else he would have introduced the possibility of having to sacrifice a vassal to protect himself later by having set the expectation. More than anything else, it seemed like he had no idea it was necessary to get Bole killed before having to do it. Derrick had been able to shed the most light on the subject of his former Beater partner, though it was difficult to get a hold of him, going through the scattered and not entirely diligent reports of the minions, who had never been informed of Bole's death. He managed to get ahold of the vassal after Astronomy one night.</p><p>"Honestly, Malfoy, as far as I could tell, there was nothing about him that would have offended your old friend except being a Quidditch player. I know you probably believe we're all plotting against each other, but no one was plotting against him. He was useful and not a threat to you. Kind of an anomaly, really."</p><p>"Then you suspect that he was not targeted specifically?" Draco had asked, acting as though he only picked up on the one implication.</p><p>"Didn't Nott basically say it himself? That the whole time, it wasn't spoken but everyone knew it, that you were the most important, he was the second, and everyone else was expendable?" Draco declined to respond. <em>The vassal expects to have to sacrifice is own life before that of his lord, yet there was never a time when I asked as much. </em>"We never even had a funeral for Crabbe- did you ever wonder why his little brother hates you?"</p><p>"We needed to be able to keep moving. Had we remained in Britain long enough to give him his last rites, we would have died like nifflers. None of the Death Eaters had been invited to his family's wake-"</p><p>"That's because they couldn't afford to be connected. We were his school friends. No one would have suspected a thing."</p><p>"You know as well as I do we could not afford to get teary-eyed over one death," he said quietly. He was not meant to explain such decisions, but it was important that Derrick understood, since he had taken up Bole's post. "I've made Goyle an official Vassal, but we shall still need another. Tell me if you have any suggestions; I shall ask the same of Bulstrode."</p><p>He had never communicated specifically that his vassals were equals; if anything he wanted them to be currying favor with him, and none had done it so successfully as Nott. It was the nature of a fellow Slytherin to be ambitious, and he had expected usurpations to his authority, and killing vassals amounted to as much, especially non-rivals. Thinking back on it, there were a few times when his former vassal might have been feeding him false information. <em>There was nothing inordinately suspicious about his conation to shield his mind, yet taken together with his other offenses...</em></p><p>Draco left the train of thought at the station. There was no point in pursuing it, and he had work to do for classes, and the help he could get from his current vassals was limited. He wanted a new one who could ideally replace the bookish Nott, and it would be even better to have one from the native population, but he was keeping his expectations contained. The Lord Voldemort had excused his absence in itself, but seemed inclined to force him to study all the harder. <em>It fits, truly, since I still need to learn. </em>He was reminded of first year, in which the very same dark wizard had taught him lessons, in the classroom and out of it, as an enemy and a future master.</p><p>"Dr. Jodorowski wants to see you," an older wizard said, interrupting his memories.</p><p>"Thank you, Kamotsky," he answered. "It pleases me that you have come around to my way of seeing the conflict."</p><p>"The Heir of Slytherin is friendless and alone," he explained. "He is no longer any more a threat to me than you are." <em>Honesty. Interesting. </em>"You Hogwarts exiles have been nothing but a blight on our school. It is better to see you divided."</p><p>"I could question the wisdom of leaving your loyalties on display in such a manner, yet as you say I have an appointment. Should you find greater wisdom or lesser loyalty when next we meet, perhaps you could mention one or the other."</p><p>Going to the office of the mind arts teacher, he strengthened his mental shields as much as possible. He was in her class, to be sure, and he could reasonably guess that she had at least attempted to peruse his secrets before, but if she did, she gave no sign. As the only witch he saw on a daily basis, she would expect him to have a lower guard around her, but the late Alecto Carrow had taught him enough about that. <em>Perhaps she was a Death Eater and a comrade of my father, but her death could not come soon enough.</em></p><p>"Good evening, Draco," she said as he entered, not using rank or title. He felt her brush against his shields, but no further effort was made. He had been studying Occlumency long enough to where he could be confident he could at least keep out most invaders, though there was still nothing he could do about the Dark Lord. <em>I shall have to remember he intends to keep his position secret.</em></p><p>"Good evening, Dr. Jodorowski," he responded, taking a seat as close to her desk as possible, the better to look as though his guard were down. She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The consistently annoying thing about her classes was that despite not always using Legilimency, especially when dealing with students of considerable defensive ability, she still acted as though she could read their minds, and would interpret their words and actions however she wanted. The only consistency in her interpretations was that they seemed to embarrass the students.</p><p>"Have you ever been to the girls' tower?"</p><p>"No. Going there is strictly forbidden. I would be expelled."</p><p>"Are you sure? The Headmaster seems quite forgiving of your transgressions."</p><p>"There is no transgression where I was simply acting on orders. As such there is no indication Headmaster Karkaroff would have anything but reproach."</p><p>"Interesting, if defensive." <em>One wonders why I was on the defensive, after being accused of violating the rules.</em> He had no idea who could have reported his excursion with the Estonian dead and everyone else equally responsible for the offense. Nott's betrayal, however, had him suspicious of Bulstrode and Davis. <em>At a recent meeting of the Outer Circle, as it were, father noticed the father of the former was acting strangely. </em>The latter, though, was only a half-blood, and more importantly, she had slept with him. As little as he wanted to find fault with her, it showed a lack of loyalty, though that was a trait he shared, he supposed.</p><p>"Perhaps you could tell me why you believe I have set foot in the girls' tower."</p><p>"You simply had that look about you not too long ago. For a moment, I had thought your disappearance from my classes could be explained by having been found out by a pack of jealous males." He envisioned a herd of wildebeests, or perhaps Erumpents.</p><p>"If my disappearance did not already have an explanation, I might have suspected the very same," he said. "I can sympathize with the sting of coming up with a clever conclusion, only for it to turn out to be incorrect." He spoke truthfully, and by a certain definition sincerely, but the voice was patronizing. <em>She's trying a different tactic with me, but it's still to get me to let my guard down. She wants me to boast about my accomplishments.</em></p><p>"It's quite an unpleasant experience for those of your pride, Draco. The truth is, I enjoy having students like you, except when you skip my classes, because you provide an interesting case to study." <em>She's using whatever passes for the mind arts among muggles. A pity she does not realize I have cursed the expressions of my face.</em></p><p>It had been a difficult decision, since it almost felt inhuman whenever he saw himself in the mirror, but he no longer wanted to be human if he could not so serve the ends of magic and its survival. The Stone Face Curse was one of the ancient spells a few of the Death Eaters had preserved since the days of being hunted like rats. Hiding among muggles had taken a more disgraceful form in those days. Their methods of testing people for witchcraft, however, were usually completely illogical, leaving them no other choice.</p><p>There was a knock at the door.</p><p>"Yes?" the teacher called out.</p><p>"I have come with a request from-"</p><p>"Vasily, I know. Leave it on the desk," The student's brow furrowed, but he did as asked and left. "You would be surprised how much I can get from a young wizard's expression. It is much more difficult with witches." <em>Either that, or you were simply expecting your colleague to send you a memo. </em>In addition to claiming to know things she could not possibly know and getting it wrong, Dr. Jodorowsky had a habit of using the same methodology to determine things she had less controversial reasons for knowing. Unfortunately, most of her classes, in his experience, seemed to believe in reading expressions and mannerisms, whatever mundane word the muggles had for such foolish trickery. As a result, undue credence was awarded to her conclusions.</p><p>"I am afraid I must contradict you," he said, keeping his tone more respectful than before. "I do not believe I would be surprised at all."</p><p>"Do you know anything about the Headmaster, then?" the teacher of the mind arts asked, changing direction. "Have you noticed anything unusual?"</p><p>"Perhaps one would call it unusual to send a group of students out to Austria to free an old alumnus, yet I cannot claim to have much in the way of prior exposure, so whether this contradicts his general policy or not I cannot say."</p><p>"Have you noticed anything on a personal level?"</p><p>"I have even less of an insight into his character. From your question, though, I would guess you know something, if you have reason to ask." He glanced at the missive the other student had set on the desk before him. "Do your colleagues know, or is it just you?" <em>She knows that my father and I are both connected to the Dark Lord, but nothing in my actions, behavior, or expression indicates that. I must be driving her mad.</em></p><p>"It is as you say, more or less. I have some reason to believe the old Karkaroff would never have sent a few transfer students to free someone he once claimed to be an enemy of the wizarding world. He was much too predictable to contradict himself like that." It was another habit of hers that she called students predictable every time they did something honorable, like upholding their commitments, making decisions and adhering to them, or even having internally consistent beliefs. <em>It's a wonder she finds witches so much more interesting.</em></p><p>"I shall take what you have told me into consideration," he decided. "I have, however, no concerns about the true identity of the Headmaster, because I did not trust him before there was any suspicion about either his replacement or transformation. For this reason, I should not respond to him any differently than before."</p><p>"Perhaps you have a fear of change, then, and one course of action is more comfortable to you. I have observed this behavior quite frequently among other students in your cohort." <em>Perhaps instead of trying to lull me into a false sense of security, she intends to stoke my rage. </em>Deciding against suggesting that perhaps she needed to read a book on logic, he supposed she really could get information out of people if she did nothing but lie about them until they either lied back or started shouting at her.</p><p>"Perhaps, and yet a liar would suggest the same, and doubtless have before, so perhaps you are a liar." <em>If a certain pristine fortune is on my side again, she will only take this as a compliment. </em>Closing the door behind him as he left, he had the idea to visit the girls' tower again just to spite Dr. Jodorowski, but that seemed foolish. Most likely, it had been Bulstrode who had let something slip, since he could not imagine Davis ever discussing what had taken place. Though he limited the fault he placed on her as she was the vassal in their relationship, he would have virtually nothing to say about it if Evan decided to grind her into a pink mist with dark magic. Despite being an otherwise suitable Slytherin, it seemed violence was his first response to virtually any offence.</p><p>As he returned to his own sleeping quarters in his proper tower, he began to compose a letter to Padma. The honorable thing to do would be to break it off, and yet she was a better prospect in terms of marriage. He had sworn never to place personal matters above the wizarding world. If the only benefit to his telling the truth was that he would feel better about it, then it was something he had to ignore.</p><p>
  <em>Padma, enchantress of the heart,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am troubled to inform you that a source I may not name from Burma, with whom my father's friends have met recently, tells me that a festival you would have attended recently was attacked by the Jemedar Aurangzeb and his thags. There were a great many celebrants identified as baroo and baronee, and I have been encouraged to separate from you out of the possible association, I have ignored such concerns. It is highly doubtful based on your general character that you would take part in anything of the sort. If the festival truly has been attacked, I have greater concern for your safety than any link your neighbors, family, or friends may have with thugee. Since you have asked, and will only ask again, my endeavors have been successful against all odds, but do reply at your earliest convenience that you are unharmed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Draco</em>
</p><p>There was another letter already waiting for him.</p><p>
  <em>Son</em>
</p><p><em>Our dealings in Burma have been thus far successful; the royal family is made up of avowed blood purists as we verified before having their representatives appear in the Minister's office two years ago. </em>He could reasonably guess his father only entrusted this information to a letter because there was no longer anything to be done about the Kyanzittha regime. As far as he understood that matter, the emperor himself had been informed of a trick to be played on his subordinates, making it seem as if the Death Eaters were enemies of the royal family, which would make it more likely for them to gain the recognition of the British Ministry. Draco resumed his reading.</p><p>
  <em>The Dark Lord is displeased by the decision of the conference at Ys, though he will not be personally impacted, being outside of the proposed jurisdiction already. The Inner Circle, therefore, has emphasized the viability of Burma as a new base of operations, with Asia and eventually the Americas as our new areas for expansion. Apart from Selwyn, with family in Quebec, we shall find ourselves strangers in strange lands,</em>
</p><p>The tone of the letter did nothing to highlight the complete loss of Britain, only stating that the continent was soon to follow, and it was best to stay ahead of the changes. If the wizarding world were to have any chance of surviving, its only guardians would need to keep the young from despairing as all hope was rapidly being lost. <em>In Central America there is an order that might be of some use, but before they can be contacted, we must secure a place where we have found ourselves. </em>He wished he could look forward to his unannounced, yet inevitable wedding to Padma, but he could not envision it without becoming apprehensive, though it would never show on his face.</p><p>The following morning, after readying himself for the day, he found Crabbe's brother in a long hallway.</p><p>"Erik. I would speak with you."</p><p>"I have spoken for Evan."</p><p>"He has merely yet to realize that he and I are on the same side. Has he told you the truth about our Headmaster?" The boy nodded. <em>I cannot say I anticipated that. What is the Heir thinking? </em>"Then you can be trusted with more information, which you may pass along to him as you like."</p><p>The two of them stopped for a moment in the shadow of one of the massive interior columns of the hall. The younger wizard wore a dull glare not unlike that of his elder brother, though it was clear enough they were different people. He looked substantially less patient, for one thing.</p><p>"Say what you will."</p><p>"Your elder brother was a dear friend of mine, and each of us were saddened by his loss. Goyle and I can attest that even if everyone else abandoned me, he would remain loyal, and he did, to the end of his life."</p><p>"Fine." Draco made an expression as if to ask him to elaborate. "I accept it. I don't have anything else to say."</p><p>"I should like to be friends with you. Evan seems to have estranged himself, perhaps taking his loyalty to the Dark Lord too far, but our families have always been purists first, and it is always pleasing to meet another, strangers in strange lands though we have found ourselves." Erik took a moment before answering.</p><p>"Maybe the others just didn't tell you." He looked around briefly, though it was unnecessary. They were talking in English, after all. "The Lord Voldemort is what binds you all together. You'd be at each other's throats if you didn't have him and you know it. You've seen the way the new money looks at you." <em>I presume he refers to Gibbon and some of the more recent recruits.</em></p><p>"Are you saying we need him?" Draco asked, deciding to be more direct. <em>I cannot tell him that the opposite is true; I cannot trust him to occlude his mind.</em></p><p>"More than you understand. The war isn't just at home anymore. There are other powerful wizards out there."</p><p>"Very few of them oppose us. Our enemies are at home and on the continent. They require subtlety, not overwhelming force." <em>To make matters worse, I doubt that even the Dark Lord could defeat enough of them together. Even Grindelwald has mostly been attacking and running to minimize the risk to himself.</em></p><p>"I disagree. We won't beat them without strength. Our master is strong and he will scare the cowardly lots into submission. Crouch will not come and murder their children in their beds." Draco was following the logic, but he could not say he liked where it was going. It sounded like the Lestranges came up with it. <em>The Crabbe and Goyle families have grown closer to their side of the fence ever since we lost his older brother.</em></p><p>"Taking such drastic action would only energize the people of the continent against the cause of the Death Eaters. More than enough wizards are not so cowardly they would side with whoever threatens to do worse to them if not granted their way." He kept himself from sighing. It was obvious enough that his argument was just a means to the end of getting the younger student to agree with him, that they would not be enemies if Grindelwald came to his alma mater to restore it to its former glory. <em>The Lord Voldemort ordered me to free him. There must be some plan in the works in the event that he comes here.</em></p><p>"Мелфой!" a voice called out from down the hall. He looked back and Erik was gone. "You need to know this." It was one of the Durmstrang boys who had come to their side, probably a Ukrainian.</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Headmaster Karkaroff has disappeared."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0039"><h2>39. Interlude: The Magicians of Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius had not expected help finding the old fortress again, but they received it all the same. Wahde was apparently an official member of the Order of the Phoenix, and off school on an Islamic holiday called Eid al-Adha, during which all schools, businesses, and government offices had to be closed. Charlie looked a bit confused by the phenomenon as they waited outside the fortress to be admitted, so he pulled the younger wizard aside.</p><p>"It's like how we got Christmas and Easter holidays from Hogwarts." He thought about the complex religious history of central Africa. "Come to think of it, they might get that too,"</p><p>"I guess. I mean it makes sense, but it's one of those things you just sort of take for granted without thinking about it as a kid, then..."</p><p>"We were a little more traditional when I was a lad. Old Walburga Black never took her sons to church, but she made sure we all knew our carols. God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs, We Three Wizards; I'm sure you've heard them." A look in Charlie's eyes suggested regret that he had not asked anything of the older wizard's personal history. <em>It's not important. There's not enough that I'm not ashamed of.</em></p><p>Not for the first time, he regretted the way he had treated Peter while they were all in Hogwarts. He knew there was no way their teasing made his treachery justified, and he liked to think they really were friends, but the rat was a bit of a sensitive soul, and not immune to the fact that he usually lost their games, except wizard's chess. He knew James had straightened up by the time he graduated, but the old group had almost entirely broken up at that point. Moony was even worse about getting serious; he even made Head Boy before graduating, meaning their seventh year they had no time for distractions. Sirius had hardly noticed when Peter started disappearing more and more.</p><p>"They're asking for you," Wahde said.</p><p>"You'll have to translate for me anyway, I'm afraid." He made his way to the front. The Magicians of Light were an international organization, but their primary language was Arabic, and they rarely spoke any language he understood except as either a third or fourth. This time it was an older wizard, though there was still some black in his hair.</p><p>"He wants to know if you took care of the problem from last time."</p><p>"I did. The peace of the Lost City has been restored," he explained, remembering what they basically valued might have even been favorable to Anthony or Regulus controlling everything, as long as they were content to stay quiet about it.</p><p>"He asks if you brought the war to it." <em>At least I saw it coming.</em></p><p>"The wanted wizards were building a weapon," he defended. "It was a golem that could break through shields." Charlie's brow was furrowing again, perhaps wondering what was inherently threatening about a metal sentry that really seemed defensive in nature. Shield charms, however, had something of a sacred significance for some.</p><p>The wizard disappeared, leaving the other two wondering whether or not that could be counted as a good sign. He could reasonably guess that Wahde had the most exposure to the Magicians of Light, though from what he knew they had little to do with Uganda, where she went to school. <em>At home, though...</em></p><p>"Have these folks ever looked around your neck of the woods?" the younger wizard asked, as if reading his mind.</p><p>"I do not think I have seen them. They do not work in secret."</p><p>"Yeah, I reckon that's one thing I'll say for them," he said. "Nobody ever complained about some group being too transparent."</p><p>The magician reappeared almost immediately, leading them into the fortress.</p><p>"We are aware of Death Eater activity in the Maghreb," Wahde translated without preamble. "There are, however, other dark wizards, and there always have been. The varying peoples of Africa, however, in many cases have no distinction of dark magic; it is all magic."</p><p>"Why?" Charlie asked. <em>It makes sense to ask, with how many self-acclaimed dark wizards he has likely met.</em></p><p>"The short version is that for millennia, wizards have terrified the do-no-magics. They have always huddled together for fear of the wilderness, where wizards lived." To Sirius, it sounded a little like what he had heard of Europe a thousand years ago, though most of the muggles there remembered good wizards like Merlin. "It was also the fact that there was very little difference between what you would consider dark and light magic," the African witch continued, following the Arabic a few sentences behind. "With no writing, no magic was truly brought into the light, but discovered and rediscovered, taught and retaught. The wizards south of the Sahara especially were gradually twisted by the magic they used, for whatever purpose. For this reason, they were all considered dangerous and untrustworthy."</p><p>The more he thought about the two reasons, it seemed they could be expressed as one reason, but perhaps it was more complicated than he envisioned. If magical communities were especially limited, though, he could see how dark magical communities and groups would be among the first to spring up.</p><p>"So the peoples might not want you to dislodge the Death Eaters any more than they would want you to dislodge anyone else?" he asked. "What about the Ministry of Burkina Faso? Don't they consider themselves... light?"</p><p>"They do," Wahde answered without consulting the expert. "Your enemies have elected not to bother them." <em>She must have been keeping an ear to the ground. It's a wonder how she gets any schoolwork done- </em>He dismissed his almost parental concern, remembering the witch was seventeen now. For better or worse, she had as much right as he did to join the war effort.</p><p>"The Ministry of one country can't be expected to go after every dark group," Charlie said. "I can't hardly blame them if they've already made peace with most of them and just picked out the worst as enemies." Sirius scowled to himself. He knew from personal experience the dark wizards were really on the same side, or at least on remotely good terms with each other, especially when the discussion was about external enemies. For all his resentment toward the British Ministry and distrust of governments in general, the fact that sub-Saharan Africa only seemed to have one could not be counted as a good thing.</p><p>"There's no way of getting the other dark wizards to turn against the Death Eaters," he decided. "We need to get people to turn toward either the Ministry of Burkina Faso or the Magicians of Light."</p><p>"One might be easier than the other," Wahde advised. "I have known since I was a girl that magical communities look down on the Ministry. They see it as a European thing that has come here." <em>Well, if it makes them feel any better, it is, but how is that a bad thing?</em></p><p>"They don't trust the magicians either," Charlie said. "The only place they've been remotely willing to accept them is in Libya, and there they didn't have much of a choice. I've been thinking about that, though. D'you remember all the conversations we had about what we were going to have to do in the long term; splitting up the Order so they can't kill us all at once?"</p><p>Sirius answered only with a look that said he wanted to know where the younger wizard was going with his suggestion.</p><p>"I think we should bring a representative from the Magicians of Light and maybe someone from Burkina Faso's Ministry to the Order outpost down here. It'll be a risk, but if they're serious about helping, they'll go along with it." <em>He's suggesting that we unite the forces that might be willing to help us under us.</em></p><p>"Charlie, with a thousand years I could not have thought of a greater risk," he responded, trying to adequately convey the seriousness of the matter without shouting. The last thing he wanted was to draw the attention of the magicians within their own fortress. "More than likely, what happens is they refuse to go along with that plan, and use the information we provided against us. You know as well as I do that these people-" he said, gesturing to the witches and wizards around them. "-will eliminate us while they can, while we're weak, the moment they realize we're yet another group with an agenda. That's why people don't trust them in the first place. Anyone who threatens the peace, whatever that peace brings with it, has to be eliminated."</p><p>Given a thousand years on the continent, he imagined the Magicians could actually make a positive difference, by some definitions of positive. There were no governments, that were ever established without bloodily putting down rebels and intimidating everyone else into submission. Eventually some part of Africa could be purged of dark wizards, and secure even to the extent they made a target of it. Charlie's brother Bill had some idea that they had their eyes on Egypt, but Libya was a convenient place to establish a base for the time being.</p><p>"Don't they still respect Dumbledore?" the younger wizard asked, as if immune to the shame of making a weak argument. "I know he's sort of... dead, but didn't he always have a good rapport internationally?"</p><p>"I was in prison," Sirius deflected. "Besides, whether they acknowledge the legend of the great Albus Dumbledore or not, we do not have him with us as a leader."</p><p>"Well, not that kind of leader. I got to talking with my brother once." <em>Bill. </em>"It was when we had a little funeral for Ginny. He said he had an idea about uniting our enemies against us, so that everyone good would realize we stood against everything bad."</p><p>"Your brother is more idealistic than I expected." Looking over, it seemed one of the magicians was talking with Wahde.</p><p>"He's a bit of an oddball for the litter." Charlie shook his head. "I don't think he's really that idealistic, though. As long as I was living at home, I don't think I saw him with anything but this weird, grumpy expression. We weren't allowed to fly, so we played chess a lot, and he played against all of us until he could reliably beat everyone except Percy. I never could tell if that was what he wanted, or if he just got bored of not being challenged. He sort of saw Dumbledore as the King."</p><p>"I presume he believes it's over?"</p><p>"Well, if it is, he'll keep kicking 'till he's dead, he doesn't have to tell me that much. I don't really think he's even idealistic so much as..."</p><p>"Stubborn? A fool?" Even as Sirius spoke he reminded himself of his father describing him as a young man, running off to live with James, whose father clapped him on the back upon arrival. He remembered reacting instinctively, not realizing it was a show of affection.</p><p>"He's very brave. He might get us all killed, but there's no denying that."</p><p>The former prisoner decided to give the idea a more charitable appraisal. Seeing Dumbledore as a figurehead or a symbolic leader made sense, since he had made himself a martyr by taking down as many dark wizards as he could. It felt like a truly despicable thing to do, but he could even claim to have received the old warlock's blessing along with his wand, when in reality he basically stole it because he no longer had one of his own. <em>The boy's right about telling a good story. Most of what we're doing is just blindly hoping people take notice that we're doing the right thing, but the story should help people realize this.</em></p><p>Having grown up with what seemed an infinite amount of wizarding stories to read from the extensive Black library, he was aware that stories were mostly written with a purpose. Being written to convince the reader of one thing or another did not make them explicitly propaganda, because in many cases the truth being conveyed through the text was not a specific partisan talking point, but a more philosophical statement about life, the human condition, or magic. There were more recently published books, written by friends or allies of his father, that were better examples of propaganda, so he only read the to see what they were saying, unlike his brother.</p><p>"There are limits to the applicability of Dumbledore in this context," he explained at length. "While he was internationally recognized as a great wizard, and he was well-traveled, he was British, meaning when we suggest to the people that they follow the example of Dumbledore-" The younger wizard sighed. "I know that kind of thing should not matter, but it does. He is not one of their own."</p><p>"He must've had friends here. The Magicians wouldn't know, but maybe the Ministry of Burkina Faso might have someone." It was Sirius's turn to shake his head.</p><p>"Adopting Dumbledore as a leader from beyond the grave makes sense only because he is dead. His example can never change, and he can never be targeted by dark wizards. We don't need a friend or a relative, we need a follower-" They turned to see their friend arguing with the magicians. A group of them had recently returned with a man about his own age, who must have been a muggle from his raiment. It looked like they were trying to explain something to Wadhe from the looks of frustration they were wearing, but she was giving them about as good as she was getting, as far as either of them could tell.</p><p>Charlie walked off, perhaps to go find someone who could make sense of what was going on for him, but Sirius remained. The muggle looked like he was recovering from a confundus and he was being magically held in place on his knees, which was not a good sign. <em>They arrested him, and now our friend is defending him.</em> Not for the first time, he resented his ignorance of the mind arts beyond the basic shielding he learned during the war. <em>I have a better chance of understanding this man as a dog, but it would be better not to surprise him any more.</em></p><p>"I found someone who speaks English," the younger wizard said, coming back. "Says he's from the Red Sea." <em>North Sudan, unless things have changed since I went to prison.</em></p><p>"We're very sorry to impose. We may be involved in this conversation-"</p><p>"I understand. It is no trouble." The wizard waited patiently as more words were exchanged. Since it seemed Charlie was not the only one to invite more participants, the arguments had to be reiterated for the new arrivals. "It appears this man is a muggle warlord."</p><p>"From where?" Charlie asked.</p><p>"I cannot say. It seems that to protect his homeland, he crushed a rebel group quite brutally. He took... I do not wish to say what he took from the enemy as trophies." Sirius did not have to wonder. The Death Eaters who did not paint themselves as gentlemen like Macnair were more or less the same.</p><p>"What is she saying?"</p><p>"It appears she says that the term 'warlord' is only an arbitrary distinction."</p><p>"I suppose it is. Is she trying to justify his actions in any way?"</p><p>"No. She compares his actions to our own. She is being unfair, since we may use magic to keep the peace."</p><p>"You're bringing him in for not doing the job as effectively?" the younger wizard asked. "Doesn't really seem fair, as a matter of principle."</p><p>"There is no fairness, Charlie. Either you keep the peace or you don't."</p><p>"Well, what's keeping the peace but putting down rebels? What's keeping the peace effectively but making sure they'll never try anything again?" <em>Is he defending the position because it's Wahde making the argument? </em>Something about that seemed off. "If you lost your wand and had to carry on keeping the peace, that's exactly what you would be doing."</p><p>"It is more complicated than that," the volunteer translator said, sighing without closing his eyes. "One of the people he killed was a witch. He shot her in the back with a firearm. There is no peace greater than the peace of Secrecy."</p><p>"Well if he knew to shoot her, he must've already known she could do magic," Charlie objected. <em>I'm willing to bet that's what our friend just said. </em>Thinking about it, the younger wizard was right. Since the dawn of history, women were usually taken prisoner rather than killed, and being shot in the back was almost unimaginable. She was almost certainly either running or caught unawares, meaning the warlord had to have some premeditated reason for spending a round on her; she must have been a threat.</p><p>"The exception to the law in using magic around muggles is a broadly defined condition of emergency," Sirius said, breaking a short silence. It looked like Wadhe and the others had taken a moment to watch him as well. "If the deceased used magic in front of armed mu- nonmagical people, who were likely to shoot her if she did, I would be inclined to pardon her offense if she were the one who lucky enough to be alive here." He pointed toward the warlord. "However, we have him. Whatever final judgment we make, we are going to have to alter his memory to ensure-"</p><p>"Alter his memory? After what he did?" the magician from the Red Sea asked.</p><p>"His actions may have threatened Secrecy," Wadhe said. "If, however, we apply the same law to him, he had as much right to threaten Secrecy as the deceased, and as much right to keep the peace as-"</p><p>"He was keeping his own peace."</p><p>"Can you say you are different?" Someone responded in Arabic and Sirius was tempted to check out entirely. <em>Whether or not this man should be saved, I can't help him.</em></p><p>He looked around, seeing almost everyone had gathered to watch. To be sure, the Magicians all had their responsibilities, but this was probably starting to seem like an important case. <em>They may well set a precedent that would influence all their future decisions regarding Secrecy. </em>The man they were judging looked frightened, but he was not resisting in any way. <em>It's easy to see why. He knows he's not getting out of this without help.</em></p><p>Sirius drew his wand slowly to give him a cheering charm, or perhaps a cushioning charm for his knees, but someone pointed to it as soon as it was visible. <em>Perhaps I should have already had it out- </em>No one was drawing, however; it seemed they were all content to stare.</p><p>"Is that the Deathstick?" the translator asked.</p><p>"I wouldn't know. I received it as a dying gift from its former master." Somehow honesty seemed like the best policy.</p><p>"Who was the former master?"</p><p>"Albus Dumbledore. I can't tell you where he got it." He waited for his words to be translated and everyone started speaking in Arabic again.</p><p>"Long ago, the Deathstick chose one of us. He was an Egyptian who claimed to have won it in a duel with a foreigner. At once we knew it was better to keep him around than drive him away. He worked his way to a high position, a satrap of the Magicians."</p><p>"Interesting," Sirius commented. "Perhaps I have come at an auspicious time, in that event." He had never been as skilled at Astronomy as his parents. "The young witch before you also follows in the example of Albus Dumbledore." As soon as what he said was repeated, everyone looked back to Wahde, who herself bore a surprised expression, if only momentarily.</p><p>"Were his ghost here, he would tell you that this muggle is no worse than any of you. As such you have no right to judge him. You use force to keep the peace, as does he. If you would have him trust you to keep the peace in your greater ability, you cannot expect him not to know you are there."</p><p>"He has killed people," the magician of the Red Sea argued simply.</p><p>"If any of you have not, you may cast the first curse." She repeated herself in Arabic and turned to the warlord. Sirius could not have said what she told him, but he had enough of an idea. <em>I was hardly even lying. </em>When he thought of the old wizard, he thought of an educator, a leader in war, and a friend, as much as men so unequal could be friends. More than anything else, though, he thought of Dumbledore's valiant compassion, of how sparing the warlord from judgement was exactly what he would have done.</p><p>
  <em>All the same, I owe her an explanation.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0040"><h2>40. Jungle Terrain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ron knew exactly why Hannah opposed using a newsletter to put out a narrative for the population. She was worried he and the Order were basically doing the same thing as their enemies. <em>Malfoy said it himself at one point that it's a waste of time trying to wake people up. They don't know or care if someone's changing the history books, so what you should be doing instead is changing them yourself. </em>The blonde witch following him through the jungle had heard more than enough from the other side to know they were functionally the same, even if they could make no serious arguments that the blood purists were really controlling people's minds as it were.</p><p>In the past day they had made contact with Alastor Moody, who had been to Burma before.</p><p>"We were lookin' fer Death Eaters down here during the war. I know the place like my wand handle," he had said. All the same, his whirring eye seemed to indicate he was ready to be surprised. A favorite admonishment of his was 'constant vigilance'. <em>Bit of a nutter, but we can still learn something from him.</em></p><p>At the moment, however, he was out. Hannah wanted to wait for him to come back, since it was possible he could just be away from their encampment on official business, but something was off about it to him. <em>Doesn't seem like the type to just disappear.</em></p><p>"Ron, I think we've gone far enough. If he'd been this way, we would know." He put away his wand. The footprint charm had not produced any results thus far.</p><p>"You're probably right. I just can't see why he would disappear like this," he said as they started back. "He used to train the Aurors. D'you reckon he'd leave us alone all morning without an order?" He tried to make it so that going scouting would not have been a total loss, since they did at least learn a few things. Where the witch had imagined there would be punji traps, there were mud creatures with purple eyes. They seemed mostly harmless, but something was unsettling about the way they were being watched.</p><p>At the encampment, however, the ex-Auror was waiting for them.</p><p>"Sneak off for some smooching?" he asked.</p><p>"We didn't need to sneak, sir," Hannah said. Though she had been the one to suggest waiting, he guessed she really was a little annoyed. "We didn't exchange many words last night, so in the morning Ron and I decided we would see if we could find footprints on any of the trails leading away from the site."</p><p>"That's where you're makin' a mistake, miss. I don't leave footprints." He shrugged, not seeing the need to criticize them any further, or explain how it was that he did not leave footprints. "Good that you didn't waste the whole morning, then. What'd you learn scouting?" They told him about the strange creatures. "Some sort of auk nat, I reckon."</p><p>"What's that?"</p><p>"Magic in the area is sometimes reliant on the nats. Powerful enough, but it's not easy to get them to work with you."</p><p>"What are they?" Ron asked. <em>Doesn't like to reveal a whole lot, does he?</em></p><p>"Spirits. More powerful they are, the less likely it is you'll have to worry about them. Worst we'll be dealing with is a ywa saung nat. Great nats or ahtet nats are not going to be bothering with people like us."</p><p>"People have wands, though, right?" Hannah asked. <em>She's probably right. For Burma to be on the map and dealing with other countries-</em></p><p>"They're called weizza. Most of the same kinds of spells we've got; relatively simple, quick incantations. မီး should give you a natural-looking fire. သေခြင်း is one they like to use, and it'll kill you shortly after it hits, but it's slow and you can block it."</p><p>The local wizards did not sound terribly dangerous, but the general character of Mad-Eye Moody had Ron on edge. <em>He wants us to ask questions. He's testing us.</em></p><p>"What do we do about the nats? If the weizza can summon them-"</p><p>"Now yer askin' the right questions. Conjuring is unlikely to yield any positive result; flames, ropes, conjured animals- none of them are going to be of any use. Can you produce a killing curse, boy?"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"Do you think it'll work against a spirit?"</p><p>"I don't know." It seemed unlikely that a ghost from Hogwarts would suffer much.</p><p>"Well, it won't. What about you, girlie?"</p><p>"I can cast a killing curse, but if they don't work against-" she cut her own question off, not needing to hear the answer. <em>He's talking about the local wizards. </em>The Gryffindor was aware that the Hufflepuff had some issues with killing people, especially after that was basically what she did to escape.</p><p>"We'll only use that if we need to. Our goal here isn't killing the locals."</p><p>"Wouldn't be so sure of that," Moody countered. "Kyanzittha doesn't take kindly to foreign help when it's not helping him."</p><p>A moment passed. Ron slapped some kind of insect that was getting in his ear.</p><p>"You haven't told us what to do about the nats, sir," Hannah said. "We can't stun them, can we?"</p><p>"Use a silencing charm. It acts on the voice, and spirits have voices."</p><p>He found himself wishing he had tried it on Nearly-Headless Nick once. <em>He could've stood to be a bit quieter. </em>At the same time, the old Order member could have been more loquacious with what he and the witch were meant to do.</p><p>"If I was so mistaken about what we're doing here, d'you mind explaining it?" Ron asked. Moody turned around and stared with his human eye. "Sir?" he finished.</p><p>"Death Eaters legitimized the royal family by tricking the Jade Army into getting help from old Fudge. We're meeting with what's left of the rebels and forming a plan."</p><p>Ron decided to assume Moody could speak Burmese.</p><p>Apart from that, it made sense to assume that if the locals were not making use of killing curses, they probably knew more than enough tricks to keep him guessing. How that basically worked was that for every community of wizards, something protected it and kept it from getting absorbed into larger entities. The Cantonese, for example, could float and run up walls, along with a host of other abilities that kept their land independent and distinct. South America, by contrast, was split into larger territories in the magical world than in the muggle world, almost entirely because of the similarities in the magical theory. The vast majority of the kids on the continent went to the same school, as he understood it.</p><p>Their leader held out a hand to stop them.</p><p>"သွားကြကုန်အံ့" came his gruff voice, as if to no one. On the path ahead, a man wearing a red suit with a cap like a beret materialized before them.</p><p>"အဘယ်ကြောင့်?"</p><p>"သေရင်မြေကြီး ရှင်ရင်ရွှေထီ"</p><p>Neither Ron nor Hannah had any idea what the ex-Auror had just said, but the strange man before them clearly understood. He scowled, but the expression faded quickly.</p><p>"စကားနည်း ရန်စဲ"</p><p>"We're following him."</p><p>"Who is he?" the witch asked, obeying.</p><p>"He's one of the rebels, or at least sympathetic to them. He's a weizza. Doesn't rely on the nats."</p><p>"What do they look like?" the young wizard asked.</p><p>"Nat-kadaws are mostly witches; dress differently. You'll know them when you see them." <em>Is he giving us too little just so we keep our eyes peeled for anything?</em></p><p>The three of them followed the stranger to a village, apparently a magical one. The houses between the crooked trees were straw and plain, but it had a comfortable look to it. Ron guessed he would probably find it more familiar than the other two, having grown up in a rural environment. People wore long skirts of various colors and patterns and solid colored shirts over those, their eyes peering at the foreigners from under straw hats and other headdresses. Moody seemed to notice their observations.</p><p>"Won't see any neck-rings around here. That practice is localized to the Kayan people."</p><p>"Doesn't that hurt?" Hannah asked.</p><p>"Not with magic, it doesn't. Couldn't tell you what the wizards like so much about it." Ron was glad to be on the same page with their superior for once.</p><p>They boarded a long, pointed boat with the weizza taking the stern, standing on the end without changing the weight at all. He found himself wondering what the point of enchanting boats was, but he reckoned it could be to keep from disturbing the fish with the motion generated every time someone got in or out. From personal experience he knew rustic wizards never had trouble growing food, but there was a simple sort of appeal to catching fish as well. To keep muggles from noticing any decline in their numbers, he expected they would grow fish food to increase the population of fish.</p><p>Oddly, the practice reminded him of one of Dumbledore's suggestions to make the eventual fall of Secrecy less of a problem, as related to him by his father. Wizards were already doing a good job at not taking resources away from the nonmagical, but he argued that it would be worth the risk to help them in subtle ways, making them less frightened when the imp was out of the bag. Arthur Weasley preserved the speech for posterity.</p><p>"If it is true," the old warlock began at a conference of the International Confederation of Wizards, "that it is inevitable that our neighbors will discover our little secret, then it benefits us to make that discovery as unsurprising as possible. I do not share the belief many hold that they would win an outright war, whether or not their own children sided with them, but I for one would not like to see such a war take place. The amount of lives lost on both sides is not worth the calculation. It is essential, therefore, that as much as we need to keep them from hating us and fearing us, we must not startle them with our sudden appearance. A great friend of mine, Rubeus Hagrid, would be happy to tell you that the creatures for which he has the greatest respect are no more immune to being startled and panicked than this conference, or any other that has been assembled in response to some new technology the muggles have developed."</p><p>"What, then, would you have us do to lessen their shock before Secrecy falls?" then-Minister Millicent Bagnold asked.</p><p>"I have been fortunate enough to have a few who respect my opinion during times of war; I should be grateful for the same respect during times of peace. When the last of the Death Eaters either surrenders or is arrested, we should instill in the nonmagical a sense of wonder, we should remind them that there is a great deal more than what they know-"</p><p>Ron did not wish to recall the rest of Dumbledore's somewhat Machiavellian plan, because the day he proposed never quite came to pass. The Death Eaters who had escaped punishment by means of an ironclad Imperius defense had goaded their old enemies into believing that there were plenty more out there that had not been found yet, both in Britain and beyond. Bartimaeus Crouch Junior, between shouts of agony due to Alastor Moody's Cruciatus Curse, swore that the only way to catch them all, that what the Dark Lord feared the most, was the formation of a permanent anti-blood purist, anti-dark magic task force.</p><p>It seemed like it would take them a while to get where they were going on the boat, especially because the weizza was in no particular hurry. He could see the highest point of a temple, or perhaps some sort of castle above the trees, and he pointed it out to Hannah. She put a hand on his arm to indicate she had something to say.</p><p>"I talked with your mother when we were all at Grimmauld Place." He felt his ears go a bit red. "We weren't talking about you, though I think she can tell we like each other."</p><p>"I reckon anyone could see that." He thought for a moment. "Can you teach me something about Occlumency?"</p><p>"Hermione would probably be able to help you more, since she's accomplished at Legilimency."</p><p>"I know, but, well-" <em>I don't want her in my head. </em>"She isn't exactly around." <em>I should be honest with her. </em>"I guess I trust you more also. It's not because of anything she did, but-"</p><p>"I get it. For the record, I really hate it when people get into my head." <em>Well, yeah, you've got more experience with that. Of course you don't like it. </em>"Hermione told me she managed to communicate with my beast form."</p><p>"Did she learn anything?"</p><p>"Not a lot. I think I was hoping there would be some clue about a cure, but... it was kind of silly of me to think that there would be. I'm really just a monster when I'm like that." He put an arm around her, noticing their two guides were talking about something in Burmese.</p><p>"That's just once a moon, Hannah. If the worst I have to worry about-"</p><p>"My mother said the same thing," she said, groaning. "It still isn't funny." Ron smiled anyway.</p><p>"I haven't met her, though. You've met my parents, so that'll have to be what we do as soon as we get back." Hannah hung her head. <em>That's right, she's not sitting around waiting for us to come back. Crouch's people would get her if the Death Eaters didn't. </em>"Do you have any idea where old Lady Longbottom put her?"</p><p>"No," she answered, shaking her head unnecessarily. "I know we're not too far from where the Grangers ended up, but that was only because Hermione told me. You were right about how they're not telling us anything." She sighed. "You would think they would at least tell me, since I can keep people out of my head."</p><p>"You can't if you're under the Imperius. I couldn't tell you if Occlumency makes it easier to resist, but it doesn't matter. I don't think they trust us to stay out of trouble, and we haven't given them a whole lot of reason to trust us. If we show them we're trying, though, that'll be a start."</p><p>The boat stopped.</p><p>The odd party of four had reached a large hut of wood and green straw, which he guessed served to camouflage it from above. <em>They'll have more magical defenses than anything, I reckon. </em>Hannah thought they should let the native go ahead of them, though Moody was already going into the dwelling. Ron found himself wondering if people flew on brooms or had some other mechanism, but it hardly seemed like an important question. For all he knew, the royal family employed a legion of bird Animagi.</p><p>"In," the ex-Auror ordered, and the two of them followed cautiously. <em>We're not going to understand anything they're saying. Does he just not want us to be seen outside?</em></p><p>The interior was expanded, as he might have guessed, though it did not seem that way with the amount of wizards packed into the room. Many of them were dressed similarly to the guide, though there was a witch wearing a white and pink getup with gold jewelry. <em>Must be a nat kadaw. </em>On every surface there was either a length of parchment with illegible text, a little statue of some pale-faced nat, or both.</p><p>"Any idea what they're saying?" he asked, leaning over to the witch.</p><p>"It does not seem they noticed us." Her words rang true. They were almost entirely focused on Moody. He walked back over to them after a few minutes.</p><p>"Got some good news and some bad news. The rebels still have the war elephants." Ron's expression darkened. As far as he knew, the spiritual leaders of the country had been divided, but the rebels had some of the more powerful ones.</p><p>"Is that good news or bad?" Hannah asked, not hearing a second bit of news.</p><p>"Both. It's good for them; bad for Secrecy."</p><p>"We can't just tell them not to use the-" he stared back.</p><p>"One way or another, Weasley, there aren't enough oblivators in the world to get the job done. The moment the war weizza march the elephants through Bagan and crush all the pointy temples and pagodas, it'll be out." His scowl deepened. The Ministries with qualified people on hand were too busy dealing with the situation in Europe. Even if the Death Eaters had already done the expected thing and left, they still had to look around to be sure. From what little he had seen, it appeared the Burmese approach to Secrecy was just more extreme segregation, though the royal family had to have transgressed against that ideal, hiding themselves in a place where there were always muggles around.</p><p>"Can't we just transfigure a bunch of rocks to make it look like dynamite went off?" he asked. Moody shook his head.</p><p>"Crime like that needs a perpetrator. Already thought of disillusioning the elephants and the weizza and making it look like an earthquake, but the muggles are still going to see them. I can cast a mean memory charm, but not on hundreds of people."</p><p>"You can't do that anyway, though," Hannah insisted. "You'd be destroying thousands of years of history and innocent people would definitely-"</p><p>"You're starting to sound like Hermione," Ron muttered. She looked bothered by the comparison, and if he thought about it he could probably figure out why, but there were other things on his mind. "If we can't let them use the elephants, we'll have to think of something better."</p><p>"That's the spirit, boy."</p><p>"If they're surrounded by muggles, they can't use magic either."</p><p>"Wouldn't be so sure of that. Statute is mostly something they're using against the rebels. They'll be plenty capable of defending themselves, and if anyone sees them, they'll either be killed or scared enough they won't say anything. The Jade Army wouldn't lose sleep over it if someone said something. They don't think they've got a damn thing to worry about from muggles." <em>That's just swell. The Death Eaters prob'ly didn't interview the commanders of the army.</em></p><p>There was a pause. Hannah still looked upset with him, but she was at least trying to think of something. It seemed the locals had taken notice of them now that their translator was talking with them.</p><p>"They wouldn't recognize us," the Hufflepuff witch suggested. "Since I got here I've been thinking that no one would recognize me because my picture isn't up on every street. I don't know about you, sir, but if they saw Ron or me-"</p><p>"They would think you were polyjuiced."</p><p>"That's what you would think," the Gryffindor said. "What would a normal person think?"</p><p>There was another pause.</p><p>"I think we have to try, and it's our best chance," Hannah said. "I don't even want to think about how much more complicated and dangerous this war would get if everyone in the world knew about it."</p><p>"Just start telling them what we have so far," Ron said. "They can help us hammer out the details." Moody turned away again. "There's something about this that still bothers me."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"I don't think we were really sent here to help the rebels continue their war," he said quietly, figuring he would probably have to apologize in the near future. "We're not really supposed to be an army." He sighed. "That was part of what annoyed me in the beginning."</p><p>"What is it that you think we're meant to do here, then?" the witch asked, tone seeming slightly less vexed.</p><p>"We're here to help people. We're here to do the right thing." It was Hannah's turn to sigh.</p><p>"And we don't know, even though the Death Eaters indirectly installed them, that the royal family is made up of bad people." A brief pause took place. "The last thing I want to do is kill innocent people. It's just going to be hard to do that, though."</p><p>"I know. D'you reckon I could run an idea by you?"</p>
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<a name="section0041"><h2>41. Reasonably Restricted Underage Sorcery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Not for the first time, Hermione found herself grateful she was outside the Trace's wards. She had heard some people refer to the system as a charm, but that was a misnomer, or possibly a deliberate misdirection by the Ministry. In either case, it had no power to catch her obliviating anyone who seemed to recognize her.</p><p>Their trip to the school, Uagadou, had mostly gone well, though the students there had not been able to tell them about local dark wizards so much as a monster that was making trouble in the Mountains of the Moon. Ideally, they would have taken care of it themselves, but the skills necessary for the job were quite rare among the students, or at least that was what they said. Diggle had his doubts that their mission was really as cut and dry as it seemed, and the rest of them valued his insight, but Tonks was quick to tell him that they would have to take what they could get.</p><p>"The monster apparently has only ever attacked men," Diggle explained as they walked through the rainforest. "It has never, however, been seen by a woman."</p><p>"Good thing we've got some of both with us, innit?" Mundungus asked sardonically, keeping an eye out. "Prob'ly not a damn unicorn."</p><p>Hermione nodded. In Care of Magical Creatures, she had read that unicorns were vastly more likely to approach women and little boys than adult men, to the point where it was pointless for them to try. It was one of those things that seemed unfair, but there was nothing at all to be done about it, and no one was particularly bothered. <em>Staying away from adult men hardly kept them alive when Voldemort wanted their blood.</em></p><p>The rainforest was alive with flora, and though she could not identify every plant she easily picked out the boarwood trees and the African alpine bamboo, both of which were used for making wands in the Kingdom of Buganda. <em>We could potentially get new wands for everyone who's lost one or had one warded involuntarily. I'll have to ask Ron if he knows of any need during the next firecall.</em></p><p>The last had been interesting enough. Apparently the mission to extract a few of the students from the Irish school had been successful, but there had been complications. Her friends had both been sent to Burma, where there had been reports of the locals taking an issue with the royal family, though they had not gone into detail about what was wrong, only that the current regime was making resistance almost impossible, which she agreed was a bad sign.</p><p>"Hermione?" she turned to find Tonks walking only just behind her, the two wizards bringing up the rear. "You seem to have something on your mind. Are you missing your friends?" The two of them had discussed how it was difficult to get past the generational gap between all four of the group members, and the Auror had been correct in assuming the younger witches and wizards she had seen at Grimmauld Place had been her friends.</p><p>"There are worse things," she answered. "I could be with them, watching my friend have sex with... my other friend." It was a deflating feeling. She suspected they had not gone very far, but apparently it was not for lack of trying. In what they disguised from Ron as 'girl talk', Hannah had allowed her to use Legilimency to verify her feelings, which Hermione knew was overly invasive, but at least she was fine with it.</p><p>
  <em>Why would I even doubt that she would love him in the first place? Just because he's gross sometimes? If anything, someone willing to put up with all that must really love him.</em>
</p><p>"I didn't need to hear about that," Tonks said. "That said, I don't envy you. To an extent, I can sympathize. It reminds me of the time my best friend from my own House got a girlfriend. It didn't last forever, since most relationships at that age don't, but it was still really weird for a while."</p><p>There was a screech behind them, and apparently Mundungus was already chasing after the sound, whilst Diggle was casting a few identifying charms. Hermione tried reaching out with the mind arts, but there was nothing in the area. The Auror looked like she wanted to pursue it, but she raised a hand.</p><p>"Wait- I think we're dealing with a magic parrot,' Hermione managed. "I'm not sensing anything large out here."</p><p>"I must concur," the older wizard said as his younger associate pulled back. "The thief of all voices is active in this region, and the beast detection charm showed nothing significant." He looked over. "Perhaps we should have been more credulous by default, though. Miss Granger is our expert for this venture."</p><p>She might have blushed if she had not been annoyed at being the expert all of a sudden when she had come to understand her place in a group of adults, in the sense that they politely ignored her suggestions. It could not be helped, however, since the monster they were chasing apparently seduced its victims by means of natural Legilimency. Even if it did not normally attack witches, they had to assume it would if those witches intended to present a threat to it, and both of them had some amount of Occlumency training. <em>At least we know why the students of Uagadou haven't gone after it. </em>It was Diggle's understanding that learning how to put up mental shields was especially uncommon in Africa, especially south of the Maghreb.</p><p>"Have you heard anything from your uncle Sirius?" she asked Tonks as they were back on the trail, pretending they were not watching the wizards behind them.</p><p>"He's my mother's cousin. Remember how you were on about setting up a list of rules to follow so we distinguish ourselves as 'the heroes'?"</p><p>Hermione did remember, but did not like the way the Auror was treating her approach as childishly idealistic, even though she had said they needed ideals and she was a minor. She answered with only a glare, trying to remember that the point of the team was not to surround any of its members with those who would automatically agree with them. <em>Of course that hardly applies to Ron and Hannah- they can agree with each other about more than enough.</em></p><p>Fighting down her unfair feelings of bitterness, she listened as Tonks explained the idea of making the Order into a sort of cult of personality for Albus Dumbledore, which in fairness, it had been during his life. Her reservations included that she could reasonably guess that as a fallible human being, it was unwise to prop him up as an example for all of wizardkind to follow, but he could not screw it up for himself beyond the grave.</p><p>"We'll have to go with some kind of idealized version of who he was," she specified as she conceded. The Ravenclaw could feel a brush against her mental shields and pointed her wand in the opposite direction. It was, after all, the oldest trick in the book.</p><p>"That won't be convincing," the Auror said as she cast a human detection charm. It was a good spell which she could reasonably say she had mastered, but there were limitations to it. All it revealed was that there were no humans in that direction, and it took longer to confirm an absence than a presence. "If you felt like it, you could even create an idealized version of the Death Eaters. The way they present themselves-"</p><p>"I know. They're just trying to strengthen the wizarding world before it gets exposed," she muttered angrily. "I believe, however, that their ends cannot be separated from their means. Most of their followers, Draco included, seem to 'take the bad with the good' rather than pretending the child murders and abuse of magical creatures never take place."</p><p>"You think that will be better than what they do?" Tonks asked as she cast the same charm in another direction. Behind them, the wizards seemed to be feeling the impending doom as well, if not more. <em>They're the standard targets of the monster and neither of them are particularly skilled in Occlumency.</em></p><p>"We'll have to get out in front of it. The phoenix will represent the ideals and the teachings of Dumbledore, not the man himself. When a phoenix dies, it rises again from the ashes. We'll have to take advantage of that motif as we set up this African witch I've never met as the new leader."</p><p>A grunt from the witch six or seven years her senior indicated she still thought it was a bad idea; the lack of a verbal response indicated she did not have a better one. The Order of the Phoenix needed something to unify it as an organization, and it could not be anything its enemies could use to track them all down, and a code of sorts would help them coordinate their actions without the need for constant direction.</p><p>"I got a response," Tonks said, her tone changing. "We're not dealing with a monster at all; it's a human."</p><p>"That explains the need for Occlumency. I'd never heard of a beast that could use mind control." Remembering the distinction between 'beast' and 'being' was entirely too vague for her liking, another question came up. "Are we entirely sure we're not dealing with a Veela?"</p><p>"They don't usually kill their prey. The reason we thought it was a creature was because the victims were all torn to shreds."</p><p>Hermione contained her response. More speculation would not add anything to the discussion. Green spellfire came through the trees and she avoided it rather than shielding. Using even a basic shield was more effective most of the time, but on the off chance it was a killing curse she saw out of the corner of her eyes, she preferred not to take the risk. <em>I should have learned it reliably.</em></p><p>"<em>Stupefy!</em>" A jet of red spellfire hit some kind of insect, presumably knocking it out.</p><p>"<em>Avada Kedavra!</em>" Tonks incanted at the same target, only the spell seemed to be blocked by another insect. <em>There must be some way of forcing them into the path. </em>"<em>Incendio!"</em></p><p>The fire charm surged through several insects, but a nearly transparent wave hit the caster in the leg before Hermione could block it. Looking back, the wizards were gone. <em>Damn. They must already be under whatever influence- </em>The Auror's scream was followed by as many spells as she could cast in succession, but it seemed doubtful any one of them would meet with a target. Putting her wand to her own head, the Ravenclaw felt out with Legilimency finding one target, a man with a staff, whose mind she promptly invaded, her knees sinking to the ground in front of her.</p><p>She could represent the invasion as unlocking a puzzle, but this one was rather simple, as the wizard apparently had limited occlumency training. Overpowering his thoughts, she could distract him from casting spells while Tonks protected her with an advanced shield. She managed to point in his general direction, and the Auror used a stunner. They remained like that for what felt like a minute before the two wizards surfaced from the forest brush, returning to the path with a floating, female body.</p><p>"Situation's resolved, ladies," Mundungus muttered, the redness in his cheeks fading.</p><p>"I would hope my gratitude counts for the both of us," Diggle said, sighing a little. "I suspect this poor dear was under the Imperius Curse, and had it not been for your efforts, the caster would still be controlling her, and by extension us." He looked back and forth between them as Tonks was insisting on healing her own leg. "What exactly did you do?"</p><p>"There's a wizard over there," Hermione explained. "He's stunned, but he was moving some insects around to distract us by absorbing our spells. He might have been intending to kill Tonks with that curse, but- I didn't rightly see what happened."</p><p>"I tried to jump over it. I didn't see it coming quickly enough. I took him down with a stunner when Hermione picked him out."</p><p>"How'd you manage that?"</p><p>"They don't teach Occlumency at Uagadou, and apparently no one else in the region knows it. If we were going up against a Death Eater, we would all be dead, since I wouldn't have been able to find him or distract him nearly quickly enough." She had some understanding that like most Aurors, most of Voldemort's followers had at least some rudimentary training with mental shields. "Who is she?" she asked, looking at the unconscious figure.</p><p>"Better question is what she is," Mundungus said. "Doesn't really matter, specifically. Got to be a local one of those creatures that drive men mad as a defense mechanism." As Hermione looked at it, she realized her initial evaluation of the creature as being feminine was an understatement. Her perfect coal black skin sparkled like carbon crystals and her hair was impeccably braided in an intricate pattern.</p><p>"It looks like you weren't far off with your idea of it being a Veela," Tonks commented. "We didn't expect there to be a dark wizard behind it, making everyone think it was a monster."</p><p>"I would venture he is immune," Diggle said, a wrinkle of his nose barely evident. "In any event, I expect this is a Kuvutia, commonly found underground. Fascinating we should run into one here."</p><p>"Not really," Mundungus countered. "If it wasn't one of these, it'd have been something else. You've got Veela in the forests, Lorelei in the rivers, Selkies in lakes, Sirens on islands, Mermaids in the sea, and Slytherin girls in Hogwarts."</p><p>Hermione scowled, remembering the man was a Gryffindor, and apparently quite nostalgic for the folly of youth.</p><p>"In <em>any</em> event," she redirected. "We should not report that the problem with the monster is concluded until we've investigated the reason the dark wizard was out here."</p><p>Tonks levitated the unconscious wizard to the path with the body moving charm, setting him down where he could be seen. It was difficult to see the advantage in carrying a staff, since it was heavier, but it seemed doubtful that it worked by the exact same principle as a wand. <em>There could be some core to it that wouldn't fit in a wand- that's not important, though.</em> Looking around for anything written, like a message containing his orders and finding nothing, she decided she would have to use Legilimency again.</p><p>"Tie him up," she said. "If I go through his head, it might wake him." Diggle cast the incarcerating spell as she got into position, sitting cross-legged directly in front of him. Lowering her shields for greater focus, she entered the unconscious mind. It was decidedly easier than last time; she went through a series of memories, realizing she had started too far back. She saw her target as a young boy at Uagadou, marveling at the floating cattle. She saw him researching dark magic at a young age, pushing friends away as he went deeper into it. Eventually there was a wizard from the Maghreb who reached out with a proposition.</p><p>"Did you see anything useful?" Tonks asked as she pulled out.</p><p>"Does the name Bakr of the Draa mean anything to you?"</p><p>"Sirius mentioned him. Apparently his name has been coming up entirely more than strictly necessary. He could be some sort of go-between. If I remember correctly, he was one of the organizers of the meeting of dark wizards where he tracked his brother."</p><p>"We'll see if the Magicians have a file on 'im," Mundungus decided. "If he's setting himself up to be some kind of dark lord, he's a hell of a lot quieter than he needs to be. I don't get it. Does he think someone's going to go after him? There's no way he knows about us yet."</p><p>There was a pause as apparently everyone was trying to puzzle it out. <em>At least I know what he looks like. The memories did not tell me anything about what he wants or what he's trying to accomplish, though. We're not going to know any more until we get ahold of the man himself.</em></p><p>"I have to agree about contacting the Magicians of Light," she said at length.</p><p>"What do we do about this bastard?"</p><p>"I'll show you what we'll do with him-" Tonks started, getting her wand out again.</p><p>"Don't use dark magic; you'll weaken your Occlumency."</p><p>"Really? I never heard about that."</p><p>"It's something I had to figure out myself," Hermione explained. "Basically, getting into someone's head is kind of like a puzzle, and if it's a dark wizard, there's some kind of... route you can use to get straight through it. Someone like... I don't know Grindelwald or Voldemort is going to be powerful enough to account for that, but if I knew either of their basic motivations, I would still be using that to try to get through their shields if that was what I had to do."</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"Well, say there was a wizard who started using dark magic because he was a blood purist, like Lucius Malfoy. That motivation was strong enough in him for it to overcome his natural resistance to dark magic, akin to your natural resistance to cannibalism, incest- the point is, since I know what drives him, I would at least have a place to start. Dark magic acts as if it has a self-perpetuating instinct and undermines the user's resistance to itself, as well as anything that plays to the theme of blood purism."</p><p>"How would you practically use that against him?"</p><p>"For starters, it's not that he's afraid of me personally, but he is rather concerned about the amount of... people of my general heritage. Fears can easily be used against people. Voldemort knows his followers are afraid of him, so he keeps them in the dark, because he is not willing for it to be remotely possible for anyone to see his plans."</p><p>"It's not just paranoia, then," Diggle commented. <em>How much do you really know? </em>"Would that work against us? Knowledge of our motivations, I mean?"</p><p>"Yes, unfortunately. If you were a classic hero type and you had a- well, a saving people thing, someone trying to plant an idea in your mind would give you someone to rescue."</p><p>Nothing was said for a moment. If she had to make a conjecture, she would say everyone was examining his or her own motivations, perhaps for the first time in years. <em>It's not easy, is it? Without something to ground you, that can be a hard question to answer. </em>When she spoke with Hannah about the Hufflepuffs and their motivation, the majority of them just said it seemed like a good thing to do, like attacking a foreign enemy. She knew what Draco's motivation was, but it was rather obvious at least to her that it was just as flawed.</p><p>Tonks had essentially volunteered herself to move the unconscious body of the dark wizard, while Diggle levitated the body of the Kuvutia, some time after Mundungus put it down. He was forging ahead, looking out for threats in his own words. Hermione knew enough about propositional logic that getting ahead of the group did not prove he had felt a bit useless, but that was one of the things that would have explained it, and she would have sympathized. There were times where she thought she had no right not to join the war in Europe, nothing but a sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach, the simultaneous reminder that she was a minor and could not held be responsible for the fate of an entire country, and that she had done all she could to put herself in that position.</p><p>She remembered needling Ron about their plans for winning and their plans for after that, and she always had the pretext of keeping him honest because he criticized the other sides for not knowing what their own plans were, but the truth was she could hardly think of anything herself. Raised by normal people in the normal world, she always had that excuse- <em>By choosing to make myself responsible, I left myself a way of backing out. As long as my choices are the basis for what I believe is right, I'm still basically just doing whatever I want.</em></p><p>Looking up at the sky as if to see one flying overhead, it occurred to her that she might really need a phoenix in her life.</p>
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<a name="section0042"><h2>42. Improvised Improvisation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the days leading up to the infiltration of Bagan, Hannah had grown more impressed with the magic of Burma. From talking to Hermione, she knew it was not as developed as the magic of China, but she imagined that as much as there was to be said for the magic of civilization, there was enough to be said for the magic of nature. Apparently, in addition to a beast form, she had a beast spirit, meaning the nat-kadaw could communicate with it. She was confused about why they were so interested, but it was obvious as soon as they told her.</p><p>"You are a werewolf," Moody translated. "You are aptly named, and names have power; did you know that?" <em>He must be doing his best with the sentence structure.</em></p><p>Hannah nodded. She had heard from her friends for different reasons that names had power; Hermione had said they were valuable for ranged Legilimency and Terry had said they were tied to your spirit, according to the natives of the Americas. A witch's true name was not given at birth, but was always a part of her spirit, and only the <em>machi </em>could see it. She had never taken Arithmancy and had barely started with Ancient Runes, but apparently there were even more explanations for names having significance.</p><p>"You are not a wolf, nor are you a human," the nat-kadaw continued, to the slight annoyance of the translator. <em>In fairness, I do not think I have ever seen him entirely not annoyed.</em> "You are both, and yet you are neither. Two forms, two spirits, yet only one body."</p><p>A small silver instrument came from the sleeve of the Burmese witch, and she placed it in between where they sat cross-legged. Nothing happened immediately, so she assumed she had to pick it up, and yet the moment she touched it, she felt a slight pain and drew back as smoke issued forth. One stream took the shape of a wolf, the other a girl.</p><p>"Do you know any way of separating me from my other form?" she asked. "I've heard of... a spirit world, where you can be drawn out of your body temporarily..."</p><p>"You have come to the right place. If you succeed in this venture, I shall lead you to where the nats reside."</p><p>At Bagan, however, it seemed they were nowhere near success in their current venture.</p><p>They had arrived only hours ago and the former Auror was asking normal people about the royal family, though they reacted with confusion. <em>That's right. They wouldn't know because they think the country is under military rule. </em>Ron suggested they ask someone who was doing a worse job blending in among muggles. Without an idea as to how people normally dressed, they looked at people's faces, scanning for anything like discomfort or confusion. Not for the first time, Hannah was relatively sure Moody's eye could see through the back of his head, because he turned around suddenly and started walking in the other direction.</p><p>She looked away from Ron as the adult who was probably pretending to be their father asked questions she imagined to be about the royal family and Bagan in general. The wizard in front of them took long looks at each of them before answering. Hannah could not quite tell what he was trying to ascertain about them, but ignoring Ron took priority. It was not as if she had never been mad at him before, but it was the first time he had compared her to Hermione, and to make matters worse, she really had been channeling her friend when it came to non-negotiable evils. <em>Why can't he see that he was wrong there? Am I going to have to wait the rest of my life?</em></p><p>The local wizard knew very little Moody would describe as useful regarding the royal family, but he did know where they could be found, as did everyone else. In addition to the many temples and pagodas of which the normal people knew, there were wizarding equivalents in magical Bagan, but that was a mile or so to the north rather than just out of sight, like Diagon Alley. She had a thought that the magical part of London had existed since before the Statute of Secrecy, and its unplottability must have shrunk the amount of space it took up on maps, keeping the nonmagical from figuring out why it seemed sometimes that part of the city was bigger than it had any right to be.</p><p>"Abbot- stay close. Bagan is protected by powerful nats." She heeded the ex-Auror, but declined Ron's hand. "They can have you thinking the opposite of whatever you were thinking before you realize you were thinking it." As they walked the tip of a building in front of them came into view.</p><p>"That explains how they keep the muggles out," the Gryffindor observed. "Prob'ly explains why they don't like dealing with Secrecy; they have to deal with the nats."</p><p>It seemed weird to her that they could not simply learn the same charms the British were using, but she guessed the British were fortunate not to have spirits that tried to integrate themselves with human society, except of course dementors, who had recently lost their gravy train. The <em>Prophet </em>was suppressing the full extent of the damage when last she checked, but they mostly preyed on Scotland, and went about individually rather than in large groups. Some had apparently gone the other way across the North Sea, much to the annoyance of the Norwegian Ministry, but it was not enough to keep them from going along with the decision of the conference at Ys.</p><p>As the building before them came into view, she saw that it was somewhat larger than it had appeared only a moment ago; it was a tiered castle with each tier slightly smaller than the last as it stretched to the sky. Like the towers of Hogwarts, there were points on each corner of every other level; the stone was alabaster and the shingles a deep red. She took a deep breath, somewhat involuntarily.</p><p>Remembering the plan was not a challenge; the problem was not thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong with it. While 'not talking' with Ron, as he presented the the beginnings of an idea to Moody, she ran interference, poking holes in everything he suggested. The ex-Auror presented things with which she had fewer problems, and towards the end she was starting to think he already knew what objections she would make to his plans. <em>It might be that's how he makes plans; coming up with a general strategy and then thinking of all the things that could go wrong with it.</em></p><p>Hannah strengthened her mental shields, trying to keep her expression the same rather than dropping into the thousand yard stare that was at least sometimes a telltale sign of someone focusing on Occlumency. She did not know whether the magic brushing up against her shields was Legilimency or a nat. <em>I have to think about something else.</em></p><p>As they came into the full view of the castle, as tall as the sky with a point that seemed to pierce it as though the builders had heard of Kronos and Ouranos, she tried to remember what Hermione had told her about the use of the spirits. It was only a cursory explanation, but basically the choice to embrace the spirits that existed in any given geographical area was a choice of accepting the benefits as well as the risks, which was why in many cases it came down to how a magical people felt about Secrecy.</p><p>"Eyes up, Abbott. Looks like Weasley'll be lucky to keep his own head on straight." She looked over to Ron in naked concern for a moment, wondering if either they were all resisting the same thing with varying degrees of success, or the nat had just decided to pick on him- <em>It doesn't matter. We should really send him back- or is it too late?</em></p><p>As they passed through the doors that had the courtesy to open and close for them, there were two people waiting for them in what she guessed was the antechamber. One was a man in a suit of green armor she presumed to be enchanted with a sword at his belt. <em>The Jade Army- he must be some sort of commander. </em>The other was a Death Eater, if his black robes and mask were any indication.</p><p>"Perhaps you were hoping to meet with the royal family today, Ex-Auror Moody and company. It seems I must disappoint you."</p><p>"Who might you be?" Hannah asked, trying to keep the conversation going.</p><p>"My name is Thorfinn Rowle. I am aware that I am not quite on the level of duelist as our esteemed guest, but as they say, numbers win every time." <em>He's mocking us. </em>"Perhaps I should introduce my associate."</p><p>"I am Singu Mahagiri, and capable of introducing myself. Our own nat-kadaw informed us of your visit today, and we thought it wise to have an ally familiar with your ways."</p><p>"She predicted our every move?" she asked.</p><p>"Not quite, merely that we could expect some British guests and one of them was quite powerful. Me Saya U Thuyaung is quite gifted when it comes to communicating with the nats, but she only knows what they tell her. Our ally apparated here not an hour ago."</p><p>She looked between them, calculating the odds. Moody should be more than enough for the Death Eater, but could she and Ron distract the other wizard long enough? <em>Why did they think two of them would be enough? Even if they were really confident, it makes no sense not to make sure they have the advantage-</em></p><p>Hannah could not have said what the first spell was, but it came from the former Auror. It seemed to distract the Death Eater as she conquered her momentary hesitation and sent a stunner at the Burmese wizard, though his armor absorbed it. Swearing, she jumped back as she tried to think of something else, but spellfire flew past her head from Ron's direction. Whipping her head around, she could see his whole body was glowing and barely had time to remember the nats before he attempted to curse her again. Hastily throwing up a shield, she absorbed most of it, but was at a loss of what to do.</p><p><em>I have to put him out as quickly as I can so I can get back to- </em>Out of the corner of her eye she could see Moody dodging killing curses and continually backing away from the charmed sword. Jumping to the side, she ducked so that Ron's jinx would go past her. As she shielded again and it hit the swordsman, she could see it had only been a tripping jinx, but the distraction was enough for the old Auror to grab him and move him into the path of a killing curse.</p><p>The Hufflepuff could swear she saw Rowle's eyes widen under his mask as he conjured what looked and felt like a spray of blood, possibly some desperate attempt to escape; it was working well enough to throw off Moody's aim and keep Hannah from getting to her feet, which allowed Ron to hit her with something painful she could not identify. He was stunned in the next instant and collapsed next to her as the older wizard ran off after the Death Eater. With enough confidence in him as a duelist, she turned to Ron, her mouth making unintelligible sounds.</p><p>"...all right...are..." She sniffled as her face heated up from crying, wanting nothing more than to pull herself together. Even stunned, Ron was still glowing, and she could not see inside his mind to determine what was going on. Struggling to get her composure back as Moody returned, magically dragging an unconscious dark wizard. "It's the nats. I don't know how they did it-"</p><p>"The nat-kadaw does not attend battles," he explained. "Tell me what their mistake was, girlie."</p><p>"They underestimated us?"</p><p>"More specifically, they did not know your little boyfriend wouldn't be using anything deadly against you, and he wouldn't be trying to hit you. Not an Occlumens, but I'm willing to bet a few fingers he saw it coming. Lured them into thinking they had the numbers advantage."</p><p>"What's wrong with him?" she asked, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. "I mean; I know it's the nat-"</p><p>"Thought you were mad at him."</p><p>"That doesn't matter now!" she objected, her voice breaking a little. <em>Why would he bring that up? How is that relevant?</em></p><p>"There's nothing you or I can do," the ex-Auror whispered, crouching next to her. "The nat-kadaw working with this nat is most likely just inside, but it's doubtful she could remove it even if she wanted." She looked at him with an open mouth and a furrowed brow. "The nat-kadaw does not command the nat, she uses magic to designate a target for the gift of the immortals."</p><p>"This is a gift?" It sounded like some sort of joke from the words, though not from the tone. <em>A girl can still hope, though, can't she?</em></p><p>"One wizard's curse is another wizard's charm. The gift of the nat is a necessary step to enlightenment."</p><p>"He doesn't want to be enlightened!" she objected, knowing it was useless. "He's... good enough..." She ran a hand across her eyes. "I thought it was something like what was keeping the nor- the muggles away."</p><p>"No, that was the nat warning them about going against the authority of the king. They don't know what it is, and it works well enough. Most magical governments will agree that they're in compliance with the Statute."</p><p>"Why are the Death Eaters siding with them?" she asked. It was not the first time the question had come up.</p><p>"We'll know for sure when we ask one of them," he said, indicating the unconscious wizard before disapparating with him. Returning momentarily, she guessed their prisoner had been dropped off somewhere secure.</p><p>"We should take Ron back to the nat-kadaw we met. She might be able to do something."</p><p>"What we should do is come back successful. We need a hostage."</p><p>Hannah followed without asking why. As they entered what seemed to function as a throne room, she saw a finely dressed nat-kadaw she presumed to be Me Saya U Thuyaung, the servant of the royal family, most of which was assembled before the two of them. Chiefly colored in red and green and white, the father and mother were in their thrones, their children milling about randomly. The Hufflepuff scanned the children, looking for the biggest one. <em>The parents are young enough that their children shouldn't be older than ten...</em></p><p>She ignored the conversation going on between Moody and the Emperor, who seemed to be treating him as an honored guest, though there was no way they had not been informed of why the three of them had come, or what had just happened, for that matter. <em>I have literally no time to try to figure out what their game is. </em>It was not a novel wish for the ability to apparate that ran through her mind, but it was a pointless one. <em>I have to surprise them somehow. I don't have a chest of Fool's Gold, and they would understand that trick by now.</em></p><p>Feeling the nat-kadaw touching her spirit, she produced a weak killing curse from a range where it was easy enough to dodge, glaring at her as a warning. Hannah was aware she was probably the worst honored guest who ever existed, but she was simply not willing to tolerate being put into the same state as Ron, or letting the offending party get anywhere near her spirit for any other reason. It felt just as invasive as the constant mental pressure she had endured at the Ministry school, if not worse. The priestess only glowered politely as she swayed to avoid the curse.</p><p>One of the girls happened to be dressed differently than the others, and she seemed like the oldest, because she was even bigger than her brothers, but the idea that the royal family could be patrilineal crossed her mind, and she decided to look for the oldest boy to be on the safe side. Reminding herself that even the children would be capable of magic, she strengthened her Occlumency, doing her best to clear her mind.</p><p>Laying down a few runes with her wand, she constructed a basic protection ward around her feet. The children were interested in what she was doing, she imagined because it was different from what they normally did with magic, though she thought it was unimpressive herself, as she had a small fraction of Hermione's skill and knowledge. Waving to the children sweetly, she continued laying down runes. If the adult royalty had some objection to what she was doing, they were either more concerned with their talk with Moody, or they had not the words to tell her to stop warding the floor around her.</p><p>"<em>Expecto Patronum</em>," she attempted, thinking of her friends. As Terry explained it, there was very little text to read to understand the spell; there was virtually nothing to be gained except the incantation and the wand movement, neither of which were the challenge. <em>Now I see why they were comparing it with dark magic. </em>A thin silver mist was gone as soon as it came. <em>The memory just wasn't happy enough. Maybe it was just too general. It doesn't matter if I feel happy now; I need a happy memory. </em>It seemed the children were talking among themselves about it, but she could not understand what they were saying.</p><p>"<em>Expecto Patronum</em>," she tried again, thinking of a moment she spent joking with the normal girls. A silver mist persisted, but took no shape. She swished it around with her wand and the children crept closer to her. It was not a terribly strong patronus, but at least a dementor would think twice before bothering her. As she looked at the spell, in the air, it occurred to her that she was looking at pure magic. <em>That's something I'll have to tell Hermione if I ever see her again.</em></p><p>The children were receiving stares, but not expressly forbidden from getting close to her. A spell she had been practicing in secret came to mind, as well as the fact that even if she were not the heir, the oldest daughter would be valuable to the crown all the same. She created a few different shields, a basic one that came out a bright yellow, a clear, curved shield, and a conjured physical shield. This interested the royal children somewhat, though she could guess they had seen shields before. The smallest one had not taken his eyes off the ground.</p><p>"<em>Carpe Retractum!"</em> she incanted, shooting sparks out of her wand as the orange jet came out of her free hand, grabbing the girl and dragging her straight to Hannah's position, where she put the wand against the girl's neck. <em>I'll trust Moody to get out of here on his own.</em> Not only were the other children using magic against her, the nat-kadaw was reaching out to the nats, but the first she blocked with the existing shields and against the second she defended by willing her patronus to surround her. Running with the child, she activated the runes on the floor behind her, freezing a few of the children in place while using her wand to cast a full-body bind on her prisoner.</p><p>Putting up another timely shield as she kicked open the doors of the antechamber, she guessed that Moody had already apparated in to get Ron out of there. Hannah could hope that the royal family would be distracted by the ice runes, but she imagined they had some way of dealing with problems she had not yet predicted. A haze of colorless gas entered the antechamber and started to make her suffocate. She put a hand over the child's nose and mouth, as perhaps they knew she would, and raise a shield to keep the doors from opening.</p><p>Crouching there silently, she waited for rescue as visions danced in her mind. First she thought her shoes were gone, then she thought she was back home, then a dead body appeared next to her, and she could still see it even as she closed her eyes. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, though, she knew it was real, and with a crack she was out of there.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0043"><h2>43. Open Foes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Headmaster had not returned by the time a body appeared in a nearby Georgian town. It was a muggle settlement, so of course they had to do something about it, because their clueless authorities were incapable of determining the cause of death by any means, and were raising concerns to their superiors that there was no way the victim could have been killed, and no natural cause of death had been discovered. <em>That's how it gets out of our hands. They put this kind of information on their computers, and all at once it's everywhere. If we don't act quickly, everyone will know that magic exists.</em></p><p>Fortunately, it seemed the inability to identify the body had been dismissed as the result of his being an older Asian immigrant, quite possibly someone from rural China who was not on any data-whatever they could access. Draco had been permitted to come along with Dr. Jodorowski, who had grown up among muggles, and had therefore been invited by local magical authorities as an expert.</p><p>"This is a Statute concern," the Georgian wizard said in passable Russian. "You are not to treat this as an academic opportunity." <em>Something tells me he's using the term 'academic opportunity' either to be charitable or just professional.</em></p><p>"Of course," the mind arts teacher answered. "I might ask, though, what are you afraid I might discover this evening?"</p><p>"Direct your questions to the nonmagical," the magical law enforcement officer decided. <em>I see. They brought her in as an expert on gaslighting.</em></p><p>The three of them went into the scene of the crime, a small pub, without further comment. The Slytherin suspected he had only been requested because he had led an inquiry among the students into the disappearance of the Headmaster, and something about this case promised a clue, unless it was just a chance for Dr. Jodorowski to study him.</p><p>"Why do you have a youth with you?" the muggle asked.</p><p>"Does he look young to you?" the witch asked. "That's actually rather common for those with a lack of respect for authority."</p><p>"Who's she?" the muggle asked the Georgian.</p><p>"Russian psychologist. We bring her in sometimes to question witnesses, as well as local authorities." Draco was tempted to roll his eyes. The Hit Wizards were not permitted to use the Imperius Curse to force muggles to change their records, but they were mostly on the scene quickly enough to keep them from making inconvenient records in the first place. It was only once in a Chudley Cannons victory that the muggle law enforcement was on the scene of a magical crime first, and it helped that crimes against the nonmagical were quite limited in Britain. <em>Even muggle-baiters like Dolohov and Yaxley used to kill them in ways that could be explained without magic.</em></p><p>The local wizard was the first to ask questions, mostly about procedure. The Slytherin reasoned that he was most likely acting as someone from a nonmagical internal affairs department, and had been trained to that role, apparently knowing exactly what questions to ask. Unfortunately, the muggle was nodding along, apparently having anticipated the questions. Eventually it was concluded that their procedure had been inarguably correct.</p><p>
  <em>Oh, you would be surprised. Nothing is inarguable.</em>
</p><p>"What are your questions, then?" he asked, turning to the witch.</p><p>"Now that you have finished with yours, since you have no idea of what is going on here, I would first ask why is it that you concluded the victim was killed in a manner that could not be explained." The body was no longer present, meaning the officer was relying on a sheet of paper. He listed off the possible ways of dying either naturally, accidentally, or intentionally, and none of them were possible, as confirmed by an intensive medical scan.</p><p>Draco had to forgive the Georgian magical authorities for the unfortunate coincidence, but the consequence would be the same as if they announced the existence of magic directly. It was bad enough that they had been asked not to take out their wands. <em>Even torturing this man to insanity like the Lestranges did to the Longbottoms would not be easily explained, and would likely not solve the problem. There are too many witnesses, besides. </em>His eyes lingered for a moment on what he knew to be a camera, probably for recording pub brawls.</p><p>"Could he have simply lost the will to live?" he asked, knowing he was really only there to observe.</p><p>"No. There has to be something killing you. It is not possible to just decide to be dead." <em>Correct, in a sense, as methods of suicide would be otherwise unnecessary.</em></p><p>"How long have you been holding onto that?" Dr. Jodorowski asked. "Perhaps the issue has more to do with your willingness to accept the unknown."</p><p>"I recognize you were brought here to question me," the muggle said. "That is what we are saying; that the cause of death is unknown. You are clearly making this about-"</p><p>"Ah, but you still insist on knowing, all the more as you deny knowing the cause of death. Are you entirely certain you know every possible cause of death?"</p><p>"We know all known causes, of course we do!" he responded angrily. "That is why they are known causes and that is why we checked them. What we know, then, because the victim is dead, that some unknown cause of death took him."</p><p>"You're quite certain he was dead?" Draco asked.</p><p>"His heart was not beating. There is no reason for it to stop on its own. We tested against all reasons the heart might stop-" <em>Before daring to report the death as an unknown cause to their superiors, the investigators would have made sure of it as far as they could possibly tell. Most of the time, it gives us time to intervene.</em></p><p>"Perhaps, then, your confidence in the information comes from a need to be in control-" Dr. Jodorowski started. Unfortunately, it seemed the muggle was immune to direct attacks, possibly some kind of anti-social hermit. He extended the sheet of paper he had been reading and Draco resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose at the uniformity and plainness of it.</p><p>"Show me where the disconnect is. If you were dealing with a robot, you would not be able to say anything."</p><p>"Do you see yourself as a robot?" Draco asked, picking up on the game. The idea was to manufacture as much ambiguity as possible; ambiguity was their friend. "Are you quite sure you are of the same mental state as you were when this report was created?"</p><p>"Of course I am sure! I do not know why I even have to talk to Russian authorities- or a Russian child for that matter-"</p><p>"Interesting you would continue to insist he is a child. Did you know he is actually British? Draco, say something in English."</p><p>"Magic is real and there is an entire world apart from your own that practices it. You will be reminded of your place soon," he said. It was almost difficult, talking in his mother tongue.</p><p>"Does that mean anything to anyone in here?" the muggle asked, looking around the pub. What was perhaps strange to him was that everyone was facing away from them. The Georgian magical law enforcement official was apparently watching everyone carefully. "Why is he here if he's British, then?"</p><p>"I never said I was a Russian," he said. "I was asked to come here because I personally knew the victim, and I could answer questions relating to the possibility of suicide," he explained, deciding to stay away from anything about physical evidence.</p><p>"That is impossible- we checked the victim for identification and we couldn't find anything. His fingerprints weren't in any system, his DNA didn't match to anything- everything indicated he's a born-in-a-barn immigrant from rural China. How would you know who he is?"</p><p>"When I saw his picture, I recognized him. I should think it was a relatively simple concept." He reached out with Legilimency to predict the next question, which was one he did not like. "His hold on life was quite tenuous. I always thought he was one bad day away. A shame, really, that he had to be so far from home."</p><p>"Where is home?"</p><p>"He worked as a language professor in London. I suppose he is ethnically Chinese, but he was certainly not born in a barn. I shall return with his documentation shortly." He pretended to be looking around for something.</p><p>"There's a fax machine in the back," the muggle explained, annoyed. "I suppose you knew where the body was."</p><p>Draco chose not to confirm it, walking to the back of the pub, where there was an older man sweeping up near what he presumed to be fax machine, as it had paper feeding into it. He planted an idea in the muggle's mind that he should go out for a smoke before transfiguring a reasonable stack of pages into what looked like official documents in English, something like the spell used for book duplication.</p><p>Using his wand like that would set off Georgia's Trace warding, but a Durmstrang student of good standing could get away with a violation if he could justify it, and he had little doubt the officer would vouch for the necessity. <em>We're lucky we're in one of the countries that has wards instead of a curse that makes you grow warts or speak in tongues.</em></p><p>"Here it is," he said, returning. "Everything looks to be in order, I presume?" The muggle glowered at him for a moment, since it was not in any language he could read, and he had no idea that it was a series of nonsense words.</p><p>"Very well. You know who the victim was and why he died?"</p><p>"Yes. For this reason, we would like a transfer," the magical law enforcement officer said. "We know it would normally fall under your jurisdiction. It seems, however, that questions could be raised about your mental fitness by notable experts." <em>True enough. Dr. Jodorowski has published multiple books in the muggle world.</em></p><p>"Very well," The muggle authority said, transparently giving up. He walked to the other end of the bar and got out his wireless, by means of which Draco presumed he would inform his superiors of the development. <em>There is an only so much abuse the average man will suffer before just quitting and washing his hands of it.</em></p><p>"We may have the body, then?" the older wizard asked as he came back in a few minutes.</p><p>"Tbilisi has determined this is a case of national interest," the man said, moderately disheartened. "Local authorities are not to hand any evidence over to shadowy foreigners who ask strange questions or domestic officials who may be working with them."</p><p>Draco's annoyance turned to a perfectly contained anger. In a completely warded country, like Austria, magical government would be able to effectively control muggles from anywhere, and there would be no need for this sort of back and forth. Reaching out with Legilimency, he confirmed the agent was telling the truth, and then dug out some basic information about the central government of Georgia. He then led the magical law enforcement officer outside.</p><p>"Things have gotten out of hand," he said plainly. "Can you apparate to the capital and put the president under the Imperius curse?"</p><p>"Not as easily as you think," the older wizard said, looking down on him. "The president is being watched at all times. He is the second president since the first was deposed. His authority is limited, in theory by the law, but in effect by mistrust."</p><p>"Then we shall simply have to treat more people to the same. Dr. Jodorowski is perfectly capable of dark magic, as am I."</p><p>"I understand your concerns," the Georgian officer said after a moment. "To some extent, I sympathize. Durmstrang has been a great boon both to Russia and Georgia, but that does not mean the law will allow its students and teachers to do whatever they will with muggles."</p><p>"I see, sir," he said, nodding. "I suppose we must remember they are humans and we may not simply use dark magic on them whenever we please, even if they present a threat to a great many of us."</p><p>"We can find another way, Draco. Is that your name? Your teacher called you that." He had a puzzled expression. "It does not really sound British."</p><p>"Yes, it's a time-honored tradition of the Black family. Do you see that star?" he asked. "It is the brightest star of the constellation we know as Draco, the dragon." The older wizard was looking up, not quite able to see it.</p><p>"Must not be dark enough yet, I can't quite-"</p><p>"<em>Imperio,</em>" he incanted, reaching out with Legillimency to avoid having to say anything out loud as he put his wand away. <em>You will report that every spell I cast this evening was a perfect necessity. You will put the president of Georgia under the Imperius curse and have him remove the designation of this case as a national interest, and take the evidence, else you will bring him to me that I may do it myself.</em> The wizard was about to leave, hastening to obey, even if it looked like it was the last thing he wanted to do. The young Slytherin decided he had something else to establish.</p><p>
  <em>The reason you cannot see the constellation that shares a name with me is because the muggles have created so much disgusting artificial light that the night sky is ruined. Additionally, my mother and father agreed on my name, and though my mother was partial to naming me after a constellation, it was my father who chose the name Draco, for an Ancient Greek giver of laws, from whom we have derived the term 'draconian'. The muggles have forgotten his skill in Divination, and do not understand why he knew what he did was necessary, but I would expect better of wizards.</em>
</p><p>The Georgian official walked off and disapparated with a pop. He understood that it was really only a hasty or inexpert apparation that made a louder sound, and those trained to negotiate with the nonmagical were probably among the more capable. To his knowledge there was a ban on portkeys, though they existed all the same.</p><p>"Dr. Jodorowski," he said as she came outside. "I trust the matter is made clearer?"</p><p>"Of course, Draco. My knowledge makes everything clearer."</p><p>"The Georgian was quite willing to handle the matter. He did not know he would be commanding the president this morning, but it seems those plans can change."</p><p>They said no more on the matter, perhaps because his teacher wanted to see if anything remained of his body language to study. He had cursed the involuntary expressions off his face and his mental shields were good enough to keep her out of his head, if she ever exercised her proper magical abilities. <em>Occlumency is not a serviceable defense against the Imperius Curse. The three unforgiveable curses are so named because of their legal status, but they are linked in the sense that they are the most common instances of dark soul magic. The Killing Curse uses the caster's soul to drive out that of the victim, the Cruciatus temporarily joins two souls, essentially a contest of who has been exposed to it more, and the Imperius is a contest of wills, willpower being the strength of the soul rather than that of the mind. Even young students have been able to resist adults casting the Imperius.</em></p><p>The pair of them had returned to the school before he asked who exactly the victim really was.</p><p>"No one knows, Draco, but I have a guess. I presume you have heard of the Xian?"</p><p>"I have heard of them," he stated, implying he knew little more than that they existed. Mongolia was something of a strange country in the sense that some students went to Durmstrang or smaller Russian schools, and some went to the Chinese school, and the connections through there provided for a wealth of information about the world further east. He knew from the Mongolians a trifle about the Xian, and from the Death Eaters he knew that the Imperial Ministers had decided the Dark Lord was too much of a problem to be left alive. They were willing to work with his servants, fortunately, but if the wizard himself had no problem with resurrecting Ekrizdis, they had no problem with extinguishing him as a force of chaos in the magical world.</p><p>If it seemed like a circumstance entirely too good to be true, there was still the matter of what would happen as a result of Chinese wizards popping over to Europe to kill a dark wizard. As a rule, magical governments did not sanction trips to other lands to eliminate threats; as far as he knew there had never been any kind of agreement since the Statute of Secrecy to the effect of peacekeeping. <em>It is well enough if they decide to kill other wizards posing a threat to our world. The Lord Voldemort would probably prefer Grindelwald following him to the grave if at all possible, because only one of them may return.</em></p><p>Draco's research into dark magic had left him with only one possible explanation for how the Dark Lord had managed to manifest as a shade after death, and then return to life, and it was something he would have kept secret, but there seemed to be no indication he had ever created a Horcrux other than his continued existence. The young Slytherin could only imagine the state of the Lord Voldemort's soul after decades of experimentation with the darkest magicks, but there had never been any precious objects, nothing he left with anyone in the event of his own death. In his general lack of a need for other people, it was entirely possible he had made one of a random object and disposed of it, but that was trusting chance more than his most loyal servants.</p><p>
  <em>Father once invaded the mind of Aunt Bella whilst she was in Azkaban and she knew nothing of Horcruxes.</em>
</p><p>If some found the extrajudicial assault on the Dark Lord concerning, what was more concerning was that he had already survived one of his attackers. It was clear to Draco that he had disappeared because he knew enemies were coming and needed to catch them by surprise. <em>What remains unclear is how much longer he can last. He has outlived his usefulness to the Death Eaters, but has inspired enough of them that he can surround himself with sentries.</em></p><p>Not for the first time, he felt a pang of sympathy for Evan, soon to have the rug pulled out from under him. Without his master, he would be a powerful, dangerous minor, but someone many adult wizards could easily defeat; a more effective puppet for blood purism than the Lord Voldemort had ever been. In time, he would realize the truth, of course, but it seemed better to offer an olive branch ahead of time.</p><p>He found the Heir training by himself on a rooftop. His arsenal, as it turns out, was not limited to dark curses, and would probably make him an effective duelist. Not only was he casting spells, his mental shields had improved substantially.</p><p>"I'll thank you to inquire about my progress in words, Malfoy," the boy said, whipping around to reveal a single green eye though his long, dark hair. "I suppose I should thank you, though, that you did not invade my mind when you had the chance and every right and reason besides."</p><p>"Think nothing of it, old friend. It gladdens me you have learned to shield your mind, and I cannot say you have learned more from me than I from you."</p><p>"Really?" Evan asked.</p><p>"Of course. When I first came to Hogwarts, I rather arrogantly thought I would make my way with nothing but my own wit and magic. A bit put out by my failure, I realized I had to rely on resources I inherited. It was only after meeting you that I realized neither of those things alone would suffice. I realized I had to put together a network of allies, much like the Dark Lord."</p><p>"Indeed. He told me as much himself, that as soon as a trusted influence told him that Horcruces were not a viable method of immortality, he sought to build an organized army to preserve his life from threats. Assuming you have come to tell me that it has become his downfall, I counter your offer. Join the service of the Lord Voldemort. Reject the impotence of blood that his greatness proves. There is no good or evil, Draco Malfoy; there is only power and my master is its sole proprietor."</p><p>"There may neither be good nor evil, yet there is what is good for wizardkind and what is ill. The Dark Lord has made himself an enemy of the entire world, in his unwillingness to compromise or yield under any circumstances, and his fluke is at an end. I speak not of treason, but of accepting the inevitable, the fate of every self-proclaimed dark lord. If you will follow him, you will follow him to the undeath he has chosen for himself."</p><p>He turned and walked away.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0044"><h2>44. Interlude: Lion Tamers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Absentia Bulstrode was no longer a young witch, though for the life of her she could not imagine whether that meant she should be patient. One would think having passed many years would result in each one being easier, but with fewer years left to live, one would also think she hated wasting time, and on the second count, one would be right. Having been born with very limited talent in magic, she had virtually nothing to her name except her pure blood, of the Flint line, and that made her at least a serviceable marriage prospect for a Death Eater like Bulstrode. For the past fifteen years at least, she had been under the Imperius curse, at first drinking potions to suppress her will, until eventually it was no longer necessary. It was not simply comfortable living under the curse, it felt like floating on a cloud, and at some point that became her natural state. Thinking and choosing and considering were simply not worth the effort.</p><p>At the present, she was further humiliated under the guard of a teenage witch named Parvati; all she knew of Dean's whereabouts was that he was meeting with Sirius, some ancient memory telling her that was Regulus's brother. It interested her not at all who her captors were; she could not even be grateful that they were technically an improvement over her family and later her husband. All the same, she was bored and impatient.</p><p>"Why is this 'Dean' meeting with Sirius Black?"</p><p>"Do you know him?"</p><p>"I know of him." She scowled, slightly, accustomed to having her questions answered. They were the questions she had been told to ask, of course, but they were her questions. "Who are you, anyway?"</p><p>"We're working with the Order. A few years ago they would never have let minors help them in any way, but there was nothing they could do about it if we ran off on our own. My parents are in India with the 'good girl' and haven't heard from me in a year. Dean and I are basically trying to kill Voldemort and anyone helping him, so that includes your husband. We don't really care if you live or die, which is about the same treatment he and I would get if either of the actual sides won."</p><p>Absentia could figure about how much of that was answering the question and how much of that was venting.</p><p>"I see. Do you have me here as a mechanism of luring Walter to your position?" She could think of a few of his secrets she was now at liberty to reveal. It was mostly known, if not proven, by the public to her estimation, but there were a few personal details she doubted he would ever want revealed.</p><p>"Not really, we found an old friend and came up with a magical contract and sent it to him by owl post from a nearby town. Fortunately, we knew where he was from a handful of knobheads we sent to Austria a few months ago." She knew about those, of course, but there had never been any need to have her sign one. There was some doubt it would actually work, since she had no will of her own at the time, but it had never been tested to her knowledge.</p><p>"What are the terms of your agreement?" she asked, keeping her voice level. There was no hope of getting anything out of Parvati if she antagonized her.</p><p>"Well, he has to send us the Philosopher's Stone. If he does, he gets you back alive." Absentia would have liked to see the wording of the agreement herself. Her husband was not the cleverest of Death Eaters, but if the contract had been sufficiently ambiguous, there were ways of getting around it. She remembered having a thought about a career in magical law before she finished at Hogwarts. <em>All the same, ages ago...</em></p><p>"Alive? Why does he want me alive?"</p><p>"We said you were pregnant. Either he believes its his or he wants to kill you himself. He signed the agreement."</p><p>"Pregnant? At my age?" It was the younger witch's turn to scowl.</p><p>"You're thirty five, aren't you? Even if you were having some trouble, I'm pretty sure there are potions. My mother was about your age when she had me."</p><p>There was a pause.</p><p>"What is it that you want apart from a pile of corpses?" she asked. Parvati only shrugged.</p><p>"That's a good place to start. Neither of us have really had the time to pick between ideal scenarios; it's always been figuring out how to avoid the worst possible outcome."</p><p>"How do you get people to help you if you don't have an idea of what you want?"</p><p>"Mostly we don't. A long time ago, I cared about what other people thought, but Dean wore me down. He probably thinks that I'm in charge of him, but really I'm just what's left of his human side." She sighed. "You can criticize me, but I wouldn't expect you to understand."</p><p>"Why is that? Because I spent fifteen years under the Imperius?"</p><p>"I was going to say because you're a blood purist, but that works. You're probably even less of a person than- well, Dean is a person, but he's not human. I can't even begin to guess at what your estimation of the human condition is if your life is just a picture you're watching. Did I tell you he grew up in the muggle world? They have these things called 'pictures' or 'films' where you sit there and a recorded story plays out in front of you. It was interesting, I guess, but it was a bit of a long time to just be sitting there." She paused, looking at the door of the room. Absentia remembered she had no idea where they were. "I can't imagine what kind of state I would have reached if I were to sit there and watch for fifteen years."</p><p>"You're... saying I'm not a person?" she asked. The idea of it confused her.</p><p>"Were you even thinking for all that time? What was the point of thinking? Wouldn't you have saved time just letting the curse make all your decisions for you, rather than think of what you would do? Who even is the 'you' at that point?"</p><p>"I disagree with your assessment; I was a prisoner in my own mind. Had I been comatose, would I have lost my humanity? Perhaps the Longbottoms do not count as human to you?" She could see that she touched a nerve. "You've heard of them?"</p><p>"Yes, from Death Eater supporters we tortured. We heard about the Great Prophecy."</p><p>"As have I. It's quite a wonder what people will tell you when you're under specific orders never to divulge anything."</p><p>"How did you even get out of the Imperius?" Parvati asked.</p><p>"I know not. My memories are quite unformed from the time I came to realize I was no longer cursed. I do not believe my husband chose to release me, unless he intends to never return to Britain. Where exactly are we?"</p><p>"We're not meant to tell you any more than North Africa. It's an area the Death Eaters know how to navigate at this point, so they might try something, but we needed them to think they have the upper hand."</p><p>"They do not?"</p><p>"We have the matter well in hand."</p><p>Absentia decided not to simply frown, though that would have been her response, given that the witch could not have even been seventeen yet. It was a wonder she and her ghastly little friends had been doing magic without getting caught, but they must have been staying in purely magical areas, which limited their range of movement. All of a sudden, the suggestion to move lower rank meetings to Gibbon's old flat in London made a modicum of sense. Two years ago, she had been involved with Narcissa, Violet, Ursula, and Gwen to form a pureblood education program in the event of the demise or loss of Hogwarts, but the fact that such an event coincided the Death Eaters being effectively driven off the island, the plan dissolved.</p><p>"Why do you do what you do?" she asked after a long pause. "If your wish is for our deaths, what is it about the tenets of blood purism-"</p><p>"Well, first of all, you're wrong about everything. The muggles have their own methods of determining whose children are whose, and several of my friends came from muggle parents; they know this for a fact."</p><p>"Do you believe their methods cannot be deceived magically?" she asked. "Whatever it is the muggles can measure with their crude little instruments, can their eyes not be deceived? Were it not for the questionable loyalties of their adoptive children, we would have them quite well in hand, and they would be powerless to even realize our existence, even as it stares them in the face."</p><p>"That doesn't even matter. You're working for a child murderer. Voldemort killed children because he thought they might pose a threat to him. He's a coward."</p><p>"Do you think being allowed to grow up would have made a difference to the Dark Lord? Do you think little Harry Potter had any chance of winning except by outliving him?" Parvati scowled again, looking like she was about to say something, but did not. The door opened and she was treated to a momentary view outside their small hotel room. It was a wizarding hotel, at the very least, but that told her as little as the vista of white, one story buildings. African magical communities were known for setting up magical partitions rather than cramming their societies into existing cities. She had thought for a while that it was just a cultural difference, but it really had more to do with how old the city was, when most of the muggle part of it was built, and so on. In the Americas, largely constructed after the Statute, there were entire cities that were simply not on muggle maps, as well as miles and miles of complete wilderness that the muggles had never explored.</p><p>"The owl isn't here yet," Parvati said. "How was Sirius?"</p><p>"He told me about his plan, which his probably bollocks, but there's some tiny chance it will work. Basically there's this wand that's been around- you know how wands supposedly choose wizards and witches? Well, basically it chooses a champion who will have it for a time, and then die, losing it. When he uses the wand to his advantage and challenges people to fights, his power will eventually betray him, but if he acts as a guide or teacher, he'll live for a good while, but probably still be killed at some point."</p><p>"There are legends about this, then?" the young witch asked.</p><p>"Yeah, apparently the Magicians of Light keep track of them, but it disappeared some time in the nineteenth century, and then all the owners after that must have shared the desire to keep it secret. If people know you have it, that makes you a target."</p><p>"I've never heard of this wand."</p><p>"Well, I haven't either, but I guess it makes sense that wizarding culture would have something like the Grail or Excalibur. Whether it's real or not doesn't really matter. You grew up in the UK, so it makes sense you wouldn't have heard of it, because apparently it last disappeared in the Middle East. Did your parents ever tell you fairy tales as a kid?" He chuckled as if he had said something stupid.</p><p>"They mostly told us traditional stories from India." Absentia assumed Parvati had siblings. "The Snake Prince, The Wonderful Ring, The Gardener's Cunning Wife, The Soothsayer's Son- there are a lot, I think my favorite was the Brahmin Girl Who Married a Tiger, but there weren't many about mystical artefacts, or if they were, my parents didn't think they were based in reality at all."</p><p>"India is a big place; I'm sure there were some magical artefacts," Dean said. "It doesn't matter. They don't need our help for this; we're doing something more important."</p><p>"Of course we are."</p><p><em>Do they think Lord Voldemort needs the Stone to continue to live? Perhaps they believe him to be a walking corpse. </em>In that event, she understood their having any reason at all to believe that in the instance of a pile of corpses, their own would not be on the bottom. For her own part, she would survive, as she always had, and that was the extent of what was important to her. It was well they promised to return her to her husband rather than simply killing her, because she could fall to her knees and beg to return to the Imperius Curse.</p><p>As long as she remained a non-threat, or at least returned to that designation, her safety and security would be guaranteed. Absentia was relatively certain that was the reason she had been left in Castle Bulstrode in the first place; it disguised the disappearance of the lord and provided no one managed to break her out of the curse, she would never reveal anything she knew. What she knew was limited, of course, since she was not privy to most discussions, though there had been several problems her husband had tried to force her to solve after telling her the conditions.</p><p>The first, of course, had been killing the Dark Lord, and she had to admit that was an interesting idea, because there was precisely no part of her that wanted him to survive and no measure she would not consider, having been ordered by her master to consider anything that would work. In the end, she settled on getting him to swear an Unbreakable Vow, though she knew this had a miniscule chance of working. He would swear to her that, for example, her daughter would survive the war, and then she would kill her daughter. Lord Bulstrode told her there was basically no circumstance under which his master would accept an Unbreakable Vow, and even if there were he had nothing to offer that would make the dark wizard deign to chance dying over it.</p><p>Though he never stated it explicitly, the entire point of the Death Eaters, of gathering together the people most likely to kill him, those with power, those with ambition, was to prevent his own death. With the Stone he would live forever assuming he was never killed, and his army of enemies would see to that; without it he could be confident in a few more decades at the very least to retrieve it. The Elixir of Life did not extend a wizard's lifespan because there was no predetermined lifespan to extend; it made him younger.</p><p>"When do we expect the owl?" she heard Dean ask Parvati.</p><p>"It's our own fault we don't know. The way we worded the contract, Bulstrode could send the Stone at any time. Immediately when he does, though, you'll have to send our guest back home."</p><p>"I know. I already have the portkey ready."</p><p>Absentia was annoyed at their way of speaking; it was efficient but said precisely nothing under the surface. When she was at Hogwarts, students took a whole conversation to say nothing, but the implications spoke volumes. <em>Perhaps that was only the Slytherins.</em></p><p>Though they had said nothing about it, she was under the impression her captors were Gryffindors. The Sorting Hat's decisions eluded her sometimes, and these two were no exception, both were relatively powerful and ambitious. The witch was pure and the wizard was half, though she supposed as long as he had been raised ignorant of his magical heritage, the enchanted relic of old Godric would have no way of telling the difference from his mind.</p><p>Apparently, the two of them had been killing pure bloods who were connected to the Death Eaters, and had already succeeded in a few cases. Their methodology was simple; they used Polyjuice Potion to meet their targets in public places, lead them off by themselves, and kill them by a handful of different methods, mostly conjuring water in the throats of their victims. The majority of adult wizards and witches could not perform silent or wandless magic, and were not expecting to have to try to vanish anything from their respiratory systems, least of all before their own wands were knocked out of their hands. Apparently the witch was good enough at unregistered portkeys, and those facilitated a quick escape when necessary.</p><p>It was quite uninteresting waiting for letters to arrive, but apparently her captors were content to practice casting spells until then. She watched as they sent jinxes and hexes back and forth into each other's shields, and it made her think of watching the Death Eater training with Violet. Her daughter, Pansy, had expressed no desire to serve in such a capacity, but she was interested in watching Goyle's son, as well as Crabbe's when he was still alive. They had discussed the possibility of marriage with the mothers of both young wizards, since it seemed the enviable Malfoy heir was already taken by his own volition.</p><p>The fluttering of wings could be heard at the window and everyone looked over. Dean took the package, a rather large one if it only contained the Stone, while Parvati fed the owl something Absentia could not see from her angle. She rolled her eyes, wondering how much more delay there would be. Her life would continue, she knew, but need she grow old in the process?</p><p>"Be careful with it. There might be something we did not consider when we wrote the contract," the young witch said. The wizard sent the owl away and set the package on a table. He seemed unwilling to have his face directly over the opening when he removed the lid. Deciding to do it magically, he took a step back and waved his wand. A disgusting smell issued forth and it seemed he was the first to notice, his nose crinkling. The witch insisted on testing for potions and poisons.</p><p>Absentia could not have said whether she wished her captors well or not. She knew what would happen if they did return her to her husband; it would be more of the same, but if they died, where would she be? She supposed she could leave the hotel room, but where would she go, what would she do? With her wand, which she was sure one or the other possessed, she could call upon some old skills for sustenance, half-remembered spells and theories from Hogwarts that might enable her to make a decent living wherever she was- unless of course she met an enchanting foreign wizard.</p><p>She did not think less of herself, or her friends who were not under the Imperius, for attaching themselves to wizards of station; most of them were wealthy before they were married and could not be counted as gold-picking goblins; it was simply the expectation and there was still work to be done, even when not formally employed. It made perfect sense to go from that to another marriage, and her chances there were rather good. With only thirty five years, she was still young enough, and wherever she was, there had to be someone interested in the nobility of Britain, if for nothing other than the conversation piece it provided.</p><p>"Well, the short version is we have the Stone," Dean said as soon as they were done casting the diagnostic spells.</p><p>There it was. She was going back.</p><p>Absentia guessed her knowledge really was too dangerous for her to be allowed to wander off, though a tiny part of her wondered if the mother of his child mattered at all to Lord Bulstrode. It did not make a difference, truly.</p><p>The young wizard gingerly picked up the box and turned it over, causing the unmistakable head of her husband to land with a thud on the table. A gem as red as blood came out of his open mouth and stopped only a few inches away as her world turned over once more.</p><p>"There's a note," Parvati said, picking a scrap of parchment from the bare scalp where blood had stuck it to the skin. It took her no more than a heartbeat to read it.</p><p>"Voldemort must've figured out the exchange would take place. Fucker's probably been dead for weeks. What's it say?"</p><p>The witch cleared her throat to indicate she was reading.</p><p>"Go on, try it. I desire to see what will happen."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0045"><h2>45. Interlude: The Seeker</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Charlie had not thought that the 'selkie out of water' experience of being dropped in an unfamiliar continent would be worse in Europe, but there it was. In Africa, he had an appropriate idea of his own ignorance; he knew that he knew nothing about the continent except for the kinds of magical creatures that lived there. The Order had sent him to Austria on account of his former employment with dragon research and relocation in Romania, and the fact that he was not currently on the list of suspected terrorists that the jurisdiction of Europe was now required to investigate. In the first few hours, much of what he thought he knew about the relatively familiar continent was proven wrong several times over.</p><p>It was true that he had been feeling a bit like a spare working with Sirius and Wahde, since he did not speak the language, nor did he quite understand the plan to elevate the witch to some kind of spiritual leader. He also understood that they had no proper idea of what was going on with the Grindelwald situation, and the only way to learn was to get a man on the inside. Like other members of the Order, he had been tasked with making reports to Xenophilius, much of which was going to be cut down for publication as an article. Against the wishes of the <em>Prophet </em>and most newspapers across Western Europe, the <em>Quibbler </em>was selling relatively well in the Americas, if for no other reason than because it was the only publication not printing the exact same government mandate.</p><p>Without any backup, he had been advised to escape any scenario that looked dangerous, much to his chagrin as it was. It was not as if he had ever sought out conflict, if anything the search for Ginny had given him a way out of finding his place in what looked like a war ready to bubble over, but the idea of running from it was anathema. <em>Come off it, Charlie, your days of Quidditch and creature hunting weren't going to last forever.</em></p><p>He caught sight of a kid with a wand in his pocket moving through a crowd, looking like he was looking for someone. Most people were not seriously going to care about a kid wandering around with a wand, if they noticed, but it was illegal to carry them around on muggle streets, and for him not to know that most likely meant he was a foreigner. <em>Could be here on business with the Death Eaters. They don't shy away from using kids his age, and if we're sending people who aren't on any lists yet, they're probably doing it too.</em></p><p>Charlie had a bad feeling about just stunning the kid, or trying to talk to him, because if he really turned out to be a limey, he was almost certainly a Hogwarts student, which means he had almost certainly met at least one Weasley before. It seemed wiser to follow him and figure out where he was going. As the younger wizard ducked into what looked like a muggle music store, he followed, pretending to look interested in the records on display. Embarrassed as he might be to admit it, his father probably had a better idea of what the damn things did, even if he had not the foggiest on how they worked.</p><p>"<em>Stupefy,"</em></p><p>Darkness reigned.</p><p>When he woke up, he did not feel like he had traveled much lateral distance, if any, and he started to overhear a heated verbal debate over what kind of traitor he was, and what, consequently, should be done with him. He shook his head as if to clear it, but there was no effect other than letting everyone know he had woken. Ten eyes stared at him.</p><p>"Sorry to drop in like this," he managed. "Perhaps I should have flooed."</p><p>"Who the hell are you, Weasley?"</p><p>"I'm telling you; they're all Dumbledore's old guard," the younger wizard from before said. "Ginny was a deserter, and got what was coming to her." An older witch, probably around Charlie's age if not a year or so older than that, only rolled her eyes and the oldest wizard dismissed the idea immediately after.</p><p>"You don't know that. He could easily be one of the Grindelwald supporters." <em>What?</em></p><p>"There's always asking me, you know. I'm with the Order." Virtually no lie would be any better, not that he was in the mood to try to figure out what to say to them.</p><p>"The blood purist-adjacent terror group, we know, or that's what Hopkins suspects. It doesn't matter. We know you're not one of us." The red haired wizard stared back in open-mouthed confusion at the description of the Order of the Phoenix, which could be credited with the defeat of Voldemort, though it never looked that way to the public.</p><p>"Who the hell are you?" he asked.</p><p>"We're not meant to be here," a younger witch answered. There was only one who had not talked yet, he was a younger wizard about the same age as the other. <em>Do they all have to take turns?</em></p><p>"Officially we're not, and officially our presence is no longer required, with the decision having taken effect before any of us could find a lead on Grindelwald, but we have a new lead on people of interest."</p><p>"It's not enough for you to chase after people who are actually criminals in different countries? Aren't most of you supposed to be in school?"</p><p>"Our school is not operating at full capacity," one of the younger wizards said. <em>At least that explains who they are. </em>Charlie had heard of the destruction of the Ministry school about a month after it happened.</p><p>"The people of interest, you may know," the older witch said. "They're Gryffindors." His first thought was his own family, but they would have said that. <em>They said something about Grindelwald supporters- what in the name of Merlin's saggy left testicle happened to that place since I left?</em> "It's the only reason you're still alive."</p><p>"Do you know any of their names?" he asked. "Try one of the older ones."</p><p>"McLaggen."</p><p>"I've heard of him. Got into a bit of trouble in his first year, trying to join the Quidditch team. Don't know who he thought he was fooling."</p><p>"We gathered that he's not the brightest," the older witch said. "What we need to know is if you could recognize him."</p><p>"Yeah, I was the captain who turned him down." It seemed no one remembered he had been on the team. <em>Well, what was I expecting?</em></p><p>Basically, it was settled. After a fashion, he was learning more about the Grindelwald situation, only it was going to be difficult to escape. They knew he was a fair flier, so they made a point to keep him from brooms if they saw any. To their credit, they genuinely seemed concerned about the dark wizard, as well as the Death Eaters, and they seemed to admit that the latter had mostly fled the continent of Europe, though that fit the message of the propaganda, which had changed the anti-blood purism messaging to rooting out 'systemic' purism. Being pure himself, he had never found an abundance of opportunities were opened to him based on that.</p><p>The wizard who had basically assigned himself to watching him was calling himself Electrum, while the three younger students were in a group, with the witch being the unofficial leader. No orders had been given to the older witch, so he had no idea what she would be doing until she started following them. It made sense, he supposed, since they probably needed more than one person to watch him, even though the wizard had his wand. <em>At least we have a general idea of where we're looking and we're not just wandering around Vienna.</em></p><p>He had been granted basic descriptions of each of the Gryffindors they had seen so far; some of the names sounded familiar, but that was it. Lavender Brown and James Peakes they had actually seen, though the first they remembered from Hogwarts, the second had slipped away from Hopkins and Finch-Fletchley- one of them thought she knew a Romilda Vane, but admitted she might have been mistaken about that. <em>If she's related to Dorian Vane at all, she'll have frizzy black hair.</em></p><p>Though Charlie was not quite sure what to do with the information if he picked one of them out of a crowd, he thought it best to at least know. <em>Might be I'll make another boneheaded mistake and end up caught by them. </em>He shook his head. <em>How was I meant to know that there would be three of them in a music store and they'd be willing to commit a Statute violation over it?</em></p><p>It was not the first time he had wondered what exactly he was meant to know, in a world where increasingly it seemed he was not meant to know anything; nothing was meant to happen or to be in any sense.</p><p>The three of them were searching in the sewer system. Apparently there were astronomical signs of magic being used, and their leader, McLaggen, had recently turned seventeen, which would keep the Austrian Trace wards from going off under most circumstances. With a circular reverberation cast in front of the great Polaris, there was an elliptical disturbance reflected onto the surface of the world every time a spell was cast; useless under most circumstances, but convenient for finding runaway criminals in regions with relatively low spontaneous magic.</p><p>"I heard something," Electrum said, rousing him from his thoughts.</p><p>"If it was the same thing I saw, I reckon it was a rat," Charlie said, rolling his eyes a little. "Come off it, even if they have to be within this ellipse-thing, why are they going to be in a sewer? Aren't there more pleasant places to hole up?"</p><p>"Grindelwald believed the sewers to represent the shameful hiding from muggles, and used them as a hideout for his information network, he did," Hestia Jones explained. "The Austrian Vitez have searched these tunnels for decades and continue to find new paths. It can be compared to Knockturn alley."</p><p>A Shade Rat scurried past them as if it had no fear of magic.</p><p>"Nasty little blighters, those," he muttered. "It'd be a damn problem if the muggles knew about them."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Officially they were supposed to be secret," he said, keeping on the lookout as best he could without his own wandlight. "Problem was, they got so secret most people forgot about them. Couldn't remember why they were meant to be kept hidden." He remembered Hagrid telling him about them; it felt like so long ago. <em>Some say, tha's the best way it could've gone.</em></p><p>"What are they?"</p><p>"I've not the foggiest what the official term was; there's really not supposed to be an official term. I think in Japan they call them Bakenezumi, but everywhere else it's some translation of Shade Rats. Don't ask me how, but they crawl through the darkness and chew through wards. They like to live under old cities, old castles- Hogwarts had an infestation, but that was centuries ago."</p><p>"Why haven't they been exterminated?" Electrum asked.</p><p>"We've tried. Loads of spells are effective against them, but they just keep coming back. Eighteenth century, we figured it was more of a risk to make them public information than to just let them be, so we put up a taboo on the official term. People stopped talking about them, stopped thinking about them, and then they stopped being able to recognize them." He sighed a bit. "They were probably right, since they only really thrive in places like this, where there's some ambient magic, but not a lot. Thing of it is, when you never discuss them, never learn about them, no one really knows what to do about them."</p><p>
  <em>There's a bleedin' lot ter be learned from Shade Rats, Charlie Weasley. Bes' see that yeh remember.</em>
</p><p>At the end of the tunnel, there appeared to be three wizards in grey robes standing still, watching them. The witch and wizard minding him approached without any trepidation, asking them if they had seen any young wizards or witches, or at least that was how it sounded in German. <em>Weird, I can pick out a few words here and there.</em></p><p>"Interessant," one of them said. "Wir haben nach dem gleichen gesucht." Three white shields came up in front of them as Electrum and Hestia had their wands out.</p><p>All at once they were attacked from behind. Spellfire went straight past his head and Charlie instinctively ran forward, making the split-second decision that it would be better to try to go past the three that he could see rather than try to help his captors. Though the unusual wizards were attacking his captors, they were not necessarily friends of his, and he knew too little about the situation to cast his lot with one party or another, when there might well be three, and he could get a new wand if he needed one. Unsurprisingly, he neither made it far nor did he dodge many spells before he was hit with a leg-locker, a quick jinx that took him out. <em>A portkey- a broom, something, I just need to get out-</em></p><p>He rolled into the water, filthy though it was as the magic went overhead. With no choice but to go with the current, he tried to think of his next move. Absent of the use of his legs, he could not let a muggle see him with his ankles magically stuck together, but he had to get to that part of the city somehow; there was no other way to escape. Some old memory of his father told him of the wheelchair, which muggles used when their legs failed them, and he knew he could find one at a hospital, but there would be too many questions-"</p><p><em>"Zmrzniti,</em>" someone incanted from above, freezing the water in front of him. In mere seconds he was dragged out. "Don't have your wand, do you?"</p><p>"No, I'm the prisoner of those two-" he started, pointing, grateful that someone could speak English.</p><p>"Two?" He cleared his eyes and looked over. Hestia was gone. "Thanks to your little stunt, the witch slipped away. Any idea where she went?" He shook his head.</p><p>"I can tell you where their hideout is, but she knows that. He's got my wand, and I'd appreciate having it back."</p><p>"<em>Accio wand,</em>" the grey robed wizard said, retrieving it and handing it to him. "Call me Rupnik. It's always been my belief a wizard should have his wand." He pointed to a couple Hogwarts aged wizards, one he was pretty sure was Peakes and the other he recognized as McLaggen, who had his wand out. <em>Guess he needed the midget to spot us. What a coincidence.</em></p><p>"Thank you. You're Grindelwald's men, aren't you?" he asked. Though he could not recognize them, their robes looked official. <em>Must be the day job.</em></p><p>"Of course," the older wizard said. "We made contact with McLaggen a few weeks ago; he told us about how they were being chased by self-appointed dark wizard hounds. We thought it was about time for them to be acquainted with someone their own size."</p><p>"Your accent, it's-"</p><p>"I lived in America for a few years. New England is a better place than you might think for men like us." He looked over at Electrum, who had said nothing. "Perhaps you could tell us about yourself."</p><p>"He's with the Order of the Phoenix," the captive wizard said.</p><p>"I wasn't going to claim anything else," Charlie muttered back. "My name is Charlie Weasley. I was sent here to... well, find out what there was to report about the... Grindelwald situation."</p><p>"Well, if you would report on it, why not ask the source directly?" the wizard asked. <em>Can the others understand him? </em>"Come with us. Disapparate any time you like; we'll not hold you." An uncertain look passed between the other wizards before he said something in German. "Let us prepare a portkey."</p><p>"Of course." He turned back to Electrum. "Can you disapparate?" he asked.</p><p>"No. There are jinxes. They're lying to you."</p><p>"Right; just wanted to check something. I've heard a good bit about Jones and you should never have trusted her."</p><p>"She only abandoned us because she's cleverer than either of us. Either she has an invisibility cloak or she's just really good at disillusionment charms."</p><p>"That, or she's working for someone else," he muttered, taking the portkey as it was offered. Some snippet of conversation indicated that Rupnik would be taking him, and the rest of them would be transporting their new prisoner to the Austria base. In moments he was standing on a beach, though not the warm variety like he had seen in Africa.</p><p>"This is Iceland, Weasley."</p><p>"I don't think I've been here before."</p><p>"Well, there's no shame in that. It's quite out of the way, politically, geographically; the people rather like it that way."</p><p>"You can be confident that Voldemort won't find you here?" he asked.</p><p>"Quite so. For one thing, he's not looking for us."</p><p>There was an old man standing not thirty feet away; he wore a dazed expression. It looked like he had been fishing with a rod, but forgot why he was there all of a sudden.</p><p>"What did you do to the muggles here?"</p><p>"This is a small fishing village. Very little communication goes from here to the rest of Iceland; it was not hard to take it over without their notice. The nonmagical have been cooperative, relatively speaking. They continue to go about their lives as if we do not exist."</p><p>"What do you want from them?"</p><p>"Oh, in the long term, nothing at all. I can't imagine virtually anything they can do that would matter to us. In the present, though, we shall simply prove that Secrecy is perfectly unnecessary, and for that we require their cooperation."</p><p>"What's with this one, then? Did he not cooperate?"</p><p>"It's not that he didn't, he just probably wouldn't. He's an old man and we decided to let everyone above retirement age continue as before, unaware of the true nature of the world. I can take you to see the mayor of this town if you like; he lives in that building over there," Rupnik said, pointing at a relatively large, but still modest house. They started walking in that direction without further discussion on the matter.</p><p>"So this is like a proving ground?" he asked. "I mean, I'm not sure it really works, because it's just one little town in Iceland, of course they'd keep quiet about it if they learned that there was a whole magical world out there." Charlie glanced at a scar he had from transporting dragons in Romania.</p><p>"Oh, of course, but what if they believed that only a few of us existed? They know of the Great Grindelwald, of course, but they seemed to assume the rest of us were not part of anything larger. English is widely spoken here, so our leader asks me to handle most of the communication that he does not personally conduct."</p><p>"This is all what you do in your spare time, though. Officially you work in Vienna."</p><p>"Yes, as a Vitez. We're a bit like Aurors except our main job is Secrecy violations. We're trained to be ruthlessly effective and most of what the Austrian Ministry wants us to do is chase down children who forget they have their wands in their pockets. Leitner and I have a bet about how many fuses the boss blows when he finds out about this."</p><p>Charlie made himself laugh, though he could not help but find the wizard amicable. They reached the mayor's house and the tall, confused looking man was introduced as Ketill Gunnarsson. He had a lot of work to do and they were inclined to leave him to it. <em>I just wish he'd stop looking up at us every time he writes something. It seems like he's taking notes.</em></p><p>"As you can see, there is no cause for concern. Since we know the blood purists might have a problem with leaving them alone, we've been in the sewers of Vienna looking for Shade Rats, but there is serious doubt they could ever be used as a weapon against us. Even there, we've seen very few of them."</p><p>"I see," Charlie said. "Well, this is kind of a bit to take in, so can I report on what I know so far and return if I have questions?"</p><p>"Of course. If you have any way of communicating with the Death Eaters, we would be happy to invite one of them as well. We secret organizations could really stand to stick together."</p><p>"Right," he said, about as confused as he had ever been. "I'll be back before long. I've... got a lot of questions."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0046"><h2>46. The Statute of Secrecy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Grindelwald has taken over a village where and he's done what?" Hermione asked, as if her disbelief had some amount of influence over events that had already taken place. She had been put in charge of watching the floo for the day, and currently receiving a fire call from Professor McGonagall, which meant Andromeda Tonks, formerly Black, was in the New World with the younger students.</p><p>"Miss Granger, I am quite sure you heard me correctly the first time."</p><p>"Sorry, Professor," she said. "I just-"</p><p>"I am also perfectly certain that you know I have not been a teacher since Hogwarts was made more conducive to the Minister's plans for magical education."</p><p>"You have been a teacher, though!" Hermione objected. "You've taught us whenever we had the opportunity, you, Professor Sprout, Hagrid-"</p><p>"We have every intention that as long as there is one student who wishes to learn, the school will remain open, whether Hogwarts remains to us or not. My colleagues have been exceedingly helpful in working with the small school in Belize to get the conditions and the material up to our standards, but since I have taken this role as the coordinator of the Order of the Phoenix, and since I have allowed you and your friends to abandon your education when it suits you, I find I am unable to call myself a teacher. The fact that I have opportunistically instructed you in a handful of spells without any tests to measure your progress, assigned reading to further your understanding of the theory, or standards to which to hold you, does little to help."</p><p>The Ravenclaw said nothing for what felt like a minute, closing her eyes lest a tear form.</p><p>"I'm sorry I insulted your job," she said at last, trying to be as direct as possible. Being direct was efficient, she knew, and whether or not it was more respectful, it was more painful than stringing things out with flowery words, and that had to count for something in the economy of apologies. "Am I being sent to Iceland?"</p><p>"No. Mr. Charlie Weasley has been invited there, and he will be returning on our behalf to collect more information, and to prevent whatever damage he can manage. The Order does not have a large enough force to assault Grindelwald and most likely the majority of his followers without taking significant losses, almost certainly before any victory condition can be achieved. Mrs. Tonks will be playing her sister to travel there on behalf of the Death Eaters."</p><p>Hermione nodded. She understood that Mr. Tonks was a muggleborn Healer who was reasonably good with curses, and it stood to reason he could make a convincing Dark Mark on a woman the foreign wizards had never seen before. <em>Considering Grindelwald was put in prison before either Bellatrix or Andromeda were even born, he will have no better chance of guessing her true identity, just from having set foot in Britain.</em></p><p>She ended the fire call after taking down their new orders, more grateful than ever that Arthur Weasley and a few of the other Ministry employees had managed to set up a private network. Letting out a long breath as she rested her head on the table at which she was sitting, she remembered Tonks was in, while Diggle and Mundungus were meeting with the Magicians as Order representatives. <em>Why they chose Mundungus, I couldn't say, but at least he's out of the house. </em>Though it was a manor, properly, it had a way of feeling like a small house when the four of the were together.</p><p>"Tonks?" she asked as she saw the witch pass by. "You know Auror Moody, don't you?"</p><p>"Ex-Auror, and yes, he effectively trained me."</p><p>"Is it weird that we haven't had any word from Burma? I asked McGonagall and she shook her head and changed the subject."</p><p>"That sounds like her," Tonks decided. "That sounds like him as well. He wouldn't tell us unless he has something to report, and he doesn't consider it relevant unless he's had at least fifty percent casualties or the mission was successful, and he really only tells you that if he's talking about his next mission. Before he was the Senior Auror, apparently he assigned himself missions without telling anyone, so it worked out better not to report their completion explicitly."</p><p>"So we'll find out when he starts doing something else?"</p><p>"You'll find out your friends are still alive when you see them again." The older witch already knew it was not what she wanted to hear. "Do you want to tell me about it?"</p><p>"No, it's a bit embarrassing," she said. "If you don't mind, though, I think I'll tell you all the same." Tonks just nodded. "You've probably noticed I have strong mental shields. Part of that was just a requisite for being in the Chinese school and not wanting anyone in my head. I started learning it, though, because of what happened before that."</p><p>"Did someone use Legilimency on you?"</p><p>"No, not that I believe. I was... aware that there was something between two of my friends, a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff. I told myself I didn't know." Tonks nodded again and Hermione found herself wondering if anything like that had ever happened to her. "Anyway, I got the Hufflepuff something to, well, keep her busy and... hopefully start trying to take stock of her thoughts a little more. It was an Occlumency book, and apparently she started reading it, but she rarely had time until the Ministry threw her in prison for being a werewolf and a part of our group. Small mercies, I suppose."</p><p>"I heard about that. I was just finishing up the Auror program, because Mad-Eye insisted, though he made himself scarce in advance of 'the purge' as he called it. I understand she was forced to attend the new school for a while?"</p><p>"She escaped. Well, she destroyed it. It doesn't really matter." Hermione squinted. "Did you have black hair this morning or am I mad?" Tonks laughed, snorting a few times.</p><p>"I was waiting for someone to notice it. I'm a Metamorphamagus. I can change small things like my hair, facial structure, and skin. It's really helpful for disguises, though I didn't coast on the ability to get through training." <em>I didn't say you had.</em></p><p>"Oh, so you could be anyone?"</p><p>"I'd have a spot of trouble being a man."</p><p>"Ah. Right, sorry, that would be difficult." Her tone was not as confident or casual as she wished. Most likely, it conveyed every bit of the weirdness she felt. "They're a bit different, aren't they?"</p><p>"Yes," the Auror said, smiling a bit. "I can usually only manage to make myself a few inches taller, and the shoulders and the weight would both present a bit of a challenge, not to mention..." Hermione waved her hands.</p><p>"That's quite enough, thank you."</p><p>"Do your friends ever tell you you're no fun?"</p><p>"Not in so many words. Cho probably thinks I'm fun."</p><p>"Cho?"</p><p>"I left her with a copy of most of my notes, so if I die, I don't know, she'll still have them."</p><p>"You're all set, then?" Tonks asked.</p><p>"For what?"</p><p>"Dying?"</p><p>"No, there are still plenty of things I need to do. I haven't made virtually any progress on the central theory of magic-"</p><p>"I think I heard about that one from your friends. What kind of progress did you think you were going to make?"</p><p>"About as much progress as Ron thought he was going to make going after hard targets by himself." She sighed. "It's not an excuse. I had to do something, and I told myself the best thing I could do was continue my education, and in that setting I could at least work on my theories, hopefully with some new perspective." She hung her head a little.</p><p>"I suppose that's one possible explanation for why you went halfway around the world instead of to a closer school, or one where they speak English."</p><p>She hung her head more. <em>It's not as if I need to say it.</em></p><p>"Well, there's no need to dwell on that. If your friends are dead, there will be no one who remembers it but you, and then what good will it be to beat yourself up over it?" Hermione looked up. "Of course, if they're alive, they probably don't want you mourning them just yet. You're lucky Mad-Eye isn't here. He had literally no sympathy for having a proper cry about something, and it didn't matter one bit if you were a witch; you were getting off easy if he cursed you and shouted that he would give you a real reason." She looked like she was considering something. "Well, it wasn't really the emotions themselves; if you weren't slowing down at all because you had a bad case of the sads, he wouldn't care. On your first offence, he would probably just say something like 'Tears obstruct your vision. Constant vigilance!' and then walk off because he had something else to do."</p><p>Hermione might have laughed at the memory if she had the appropriate context, but she did not, so Tonks seemed to content herself with a smile. Behavioral observations of primates recorded that most nonhuman relatives made a smile when they wanted something; it was a mechanism of relating with a close friend or family member. <em>Communication itself is an appeal to a shared understanding, whether by words, gestures, or smoke signals; animals who can understand each other well enough have symbols that can be recorded as a means of communicating with them. It is not clear when it became common for dragons to roar as a warning, but by roaring, the dragon expects his audience to understand that an attack will follow in the event of noncompliance.</em></p><p>Something was turning gears in the Ravenclaw's mind, gears that had not been turned in months. She summoned a length of parchment and a quill and tried to organize her thoughts.</p><p>
  <em>The dragon is considered to have a degree of honor, in the sense that when he roars, there is no circumstance where he is merely bluffing, unlike the dog, who barks threats out of fear. THE DOG IS A LIAR.</em>
</p><p>"What the hell are you writing?" Tonks asked.</p><p>"I'm sorry, my thoughts are usually more organized than this," she answered without looking up.</p><p>"Hermione, even Hannah didn't talk like this. Are you channeling her from beyond the grave?"</p><p>The younger witch found herself annoyed at the comparison, especially when coming from someone who knew as little as Tonks did about either of them.</p><p>"I suppose you may have observed us to some extent when we were all at Grimmauld place, but I would ask you not to act like you know the four of- the three of us as well as we know each other. I respect Hannah, but I would prefer not to be compared to her, especially not in a sense-"</p><p>"Okay, I get it."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>There was no answer. Tonks left the room, leaving to her formulations. Quietly, Hermione supposed that she did drag the Auror away from whatever it was she had been doing, and mostly to the end of venting her personal drama. <em>Then, when she made a comment about that, I was upset. </em>She found herself hanging her head again. <em>I'm such a damnable little girl, aren't I? I'm a little girl who couldn't get over a boy, and now I'm trying to unravel the mysteries of the very nature of magic.</em></p><p>All the same, she knew she was onto something.</p><p>There had to be a reason why people used methods of communication to perform magic. She had already identified the main differences between spoken magic and written magic, and in Africa she was just now learning about graphic magic, in which a wizard drew a picture, usually to perform a summoning. For thousands of years at least, most likely all of human history, there had been those who said that the purpose of incantations was to converse with some entity that effectively controlled or generated magic, and while that seemed possible, she could not say how it explained silent magic. <em>Is merely thinking the incantation enough? When I say the incantation, though, I'm thinking of the theory. I'm not just thinking about the incantation, because knowing the incantation is not nearly enough.</em></p><p>All at once Mundungus and Diggle arrived at the same time. She heard the crack of Apparation and so guessed the two of them had shown up right outside the door. It was a skill she had been trying to learn herself, but there were so many other things to do sometimes, and all the books said the best way was to have someone teach her, and the adults were busy. Tonks had offered to show her how to create portkeys, which seemed even more useful in some ways, but she knew it would be slower in a pinch.</p><p>"It wasn't me that cocked it up, you know- why don't you ask yourself when-"</p><p>"That is enough, Mr. Fletcher; our relations with the Magicians remain thoroughly not 'cocked up'. It is perfectly possible, even likely, for there to be good days and bad days with our allies. They have only asked us to go after a cell of dark wizards."</p><p>"They're tossing all their shite on us because they can't do it themselves," the somewhat younger wizard argued. "If we die, they don't have to deal with us again, and they get the wand, probably. If we don't die, they'll tame that wild thestral when they get to it. You can't be calling this a good thing."</p><p>"Whether it is good or bad, it is an opportunity, which is precisely what we needed. Secondly, it is rather unambiguous that these dark wizards are blackguards, and not simply people against whom the Magicians have an ax to grind. They are effectively warlords who have been exacerbating violent conflict across the southern half of the continent, arguably for centuries, in both the magical world and the mundane."</p><p>"Well, why hasn't anyone else ever gone after them?" Mundungus asked. "It's because it's just not bloody possible. This whole thing is a recipe for disaster, and I'm starting to think it's not worth it."</p><p>"Allow me to verify that I have the facts in order. You hear about a group of dark wizards so terrible that none disagree that they are villains, and you lack the courage to stand up to them?"</p><p>"I don't lack the courage to stand up to you. You're getting us all killed for nothing."</p><p>"We were ordered to do the right thing! If this is not right, there is nothing right."</p><p>Hermione could not help but stare. She had not known either wizard long, but each was speaking in a manner that almost seemed uncharacteristic of him. <em>What's going on here?</em></p><p>"What group is this?" she asked. "We should at least know-"</p><p>"They style themselves, in their own tongue, as ⴰⵢⵜ ⵄⴻⵟⵟⴰ, but, not expecting the rest of Africa to know their language, also go by the Casbah of the Southern Pillar, the magical fortress where none may enter," Diggle explained. "They are led by none other than Bakr of the Draa-"</p><p>"The most powerful dark wizard on the whole damned continent," Mundungus muttered. "The Magicians know they can't take him and his men. They're sending us because we're just as good to them dead as alive. All we have is this legend-"</p><p>"Well, that's not nothing, but I would have to agree, in part," Hermione decided. "Whatever kind of legacy Professor Dumbledore left, I'm worried that it could easily be misunderstood by those who did not know him personally." She sighed a bit. "Even in the best of cases, we have to remember that he was only human, and I can't help but to feel that we're fictionalizing this legend of the Elder Wand out of whole cloth."</p><p>"That's because we are. We're lying because it's going to work. I spent a good bit of time out of the country, here and there- no need to go into why- everywhere I went, though, people at least respected him. You had to. Really wasn't any choice in the matter; he beat Grindelwald, and some say he beat Voldemort forty years later. Go down to the Caribbean, you won't find anyone who knows me there, but you'll find some voodoo priestesses who think he's really just the best damn dark wizard who ever came along. Best trick he ever pulled was convincing everyone he wasn't one himself."</p><p>"It may be the case that dark wizards have targeted each other," Diggle conceded. "The character of Albus Dumbledore, however, is widely known, and no credible reason to doubt his spotless reputation is remotely likely to ever surface. Our own Elphias Doge has written a eulogy, and has already started work on a biography."</p><p>"Who is he again?" she asked. "I'm sorry. There are a number of names in the Order and it's hard to keep track sometimes." Diggle shook his head.</p><p>"I am afraid you already know all there is to know about him. He lived a rather unremarkable life, and is only known as the childhood friend of someone infinitely more recognizable. He was a good fried in their youth, though of course they had their differences sometimes, but history remembers neither." Hermione was under the impression he had been a loyal member of the Order, if not a terribly valuable one. He would likely go to the ends of the earth for even the memory of Albus Dumbleodre, but then not have the talent, knowledge, or ability to do anything when he arrived.</p><p>"What House was he, sir?" she found herself asking.</p><p>"Oh, he was in Gryffindor. I trust you can see how he got there."</p><p>Though it was a bit of a slight, the Ravenclaw could see what he meant. He had more courage than ability, while Mundungus seemed like the opposite. Doge, in a sense, was actually screwing up the virtue about as badly, since it was not also an advantage; something had to happen for it to be an advantage- Hermione wanted to look up the source of the disagreement between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but she had too little time.</p><p>"We can pull people from other areas to deal with the Casbah," she said.</p><p>"I don't know if you didn't learn this last time we had a dispute, but you're not out leader."</p><p>"I don't have to be a leader to state facts. The truth is simply the truth, no matter who explains it. There has to be someone in our organization with some idea of how strong the Casbah is. We can use that to determine how many wands we need." Tonks came back from one of the other rooms. "Then we have to find out where it is."</p><p>"That won't be necessary," the Auror said.</p><p>"Ah, Nymphadora, what have you been doing?" Diggle asked. "I heard you had to provide portkeys for the people and places not keyed to our Floo Network."</p><p>"Yes, and I picked up a fair bit of information in the process," she said. "It seems there is the occasional redeeming factor to being used as an elevator operator."</p><p>"What exactly is an elevator?" the older wizard asked, seeming interested. Hermione whipped her head around.</p><p>"How is it that you managed to learn everything about this entire continent, but you don't know what an elevator is?" she asked.</p><p>"Are there elevators in Africa?"</p><p>"I'm sure there are, somewhere- it's a muggle thing that goes up and down; they use them instead of stairs sometimes." Some random memory told her Tonks's father grew up around muggles.</p><p>"How interesting. I imagine those are quite convenient for the disabled," Diggle mused.</p><p>"Wait a minute, there's an elevator in the Ministry," Mundungus said. "Took me straight from the Atrium to the level where they keep the interrogation rooms in about three seconds." Hermione looked over at Tonks, who would surely know that herself, but it seemed she only looked annoyed.</p><p>"Truly? I've never been."</p><p>"Excuse me, sirs, I think we should let Tonks continue with what she has to say." She tried to remember what it was; her mind had really been thrown for a loop, more than she would have liked to admit given their last conversation. "I was about to ask why we did not need to worry about finding Bakr of the Draa."</p><p>"Oh, no reason," the Auror said. "He's just coming here."</p>
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<a name="section0047"><h2>47. Team Doing the Right Thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hannah's understanding of the situation was limited by the time frame and the lens of Moody translating things to her, which was not as quick as she would have liked it, and she suspected he was cutting down on the details to present the translations more efficiently. The shorter, more complete version of the story, was that there was basically nothing the nat-kadaw could do to help Ron, and there was only so much the rebels would be willing to do for them anyway, considering how they did not assassinate any of the royal family, when the mission had specifically targeted the emperor and empress.</p><p>"Well, that's impossible!" she shouted, annoyed, not particularly caring that they could not understand her. "That might have been the bill, but we couldn't do it in the first place." The ex-Auror sent her outside for disrupting.</p><p>She took a deep breath and called herself every insulting term she could think of, or at least until her anger at herself wore out. What she wanted at the moment, more than anything, was to communicate with Ron somehow, but apparently despite being alive, he was either in the spirit world, or his spirit was just frozen. The nat-kadaw who had interpreted her duties to include siding with the rebels told her that she was better off thinking of him as lost, and that they had methods of preserving him for the rest of his natural lifespan. Hannah remembered angrily shouting that she did not see any point in preserving him if he could be counted among the dead, but the witch just shook her head. Moody's next translation seemed closer to the literal.</p><p>"It is not my advice as a spiritual guide to tell you to think of him as a dead man; that would be a lie, and not to the standards of my duties. I used the word lost for a reason." She paused. "To give my advice both as a nat-kadaw and a woman, it is very difficult."</p><p><em>So I'm not supposed to think he's... dead, but I am supposed to give up on him. That's the worst possible, thing, though- I could- maybe- give up on him if he were dead, and maybe- maybe if I couldn't give up on him, I could believe he was alive- but how can he be alive? </em>He was entirely unresponsive to light, sound- she had even kissed him when she thought no one was looking, but that only confirmed for about the thousandth time that she did not live in a fairy tale. <em>I can't believe I'm sitting here groaning to myself about missing him, when I can't even imagine what's happening to him.</em></p><p>Hannah knew she would do anything. She even suggested things that she figured the nat-kadaw might have been hiding from her, mostly what she could reasonably guess would wake him up on any other day. When it was explained to her that his spirit was unreachable, she even suggested turning him into a werewolf. The explanation that followed was most likely more complicated than the translation reflected, but Moody told her it was not worth the risk anyway. Basically, he had a rule that if there were less than a fifty five percent chance of rescuing a subordinate, there was more than a fifty percent chance of failure, meaning it was better to do something else, even if that alternative had not been discovered yet.</p><p>"The Philosopher's Stone," she muttered to herself, sitting alone outside, staring at the trees of the jungle she was growing to hate already. "Dean and Parvati probably want to destroy it as soon as possible- unless the real reason they wanted it was to see if they could cure him-" She sighed. Being honest with herself, she could not blame them for being dishonest, and they probably intended to destroy it directly after getting some Elixir out of it, but a part of her already suspected Voldemort was not even slightly worried that they actually would destroy it, because there would always be someone who needed it. She could not help but be reminded of her mother's favorite book series, <em>The Lord of the Rings, </em>which had been read to her over the course of a few years when she was a small child.</p><p>She wanted to do something, so she checked on the royal little witch, who seemed to be trying to communicate with the nats, though her efforts thus far had failed. It was her understanding that there was basically nothing they could do to get her to be unable to communicate with them, since they had no way of replicating Ron's condition, but the nat-kadaw doubted she would be able to communicate with the nats unless she had years of practice and instruction. It was concluded that the best thing to do was to hit her with some sort of pain-inducing spell every time she looked like she was trying to reach the spirit world.</p><p>"Where I come from, desperation counts for something," she had said. Moody translated that, presumably to actually explain what accidental magic was, but from the confused expression of the weizza, that was not expected. <em>Apparently accidental magic has never resulted in a child getting a nat to do what he or she wants. They're just as capable of some random feat beyond their ability, but communicating with spirits is entirely different. It's an exact science; it's almost as far as you can get from dark or accidental magic.</em></p><p>Hannah tried to think of even more wild solutions, like intentionally exposing Ron to a dementor, but she had no idea whether or not it would even be interested in him, nor could she produce a Patronus strong enough to drive off the non-being directly afterward. She knew that was something else where desperation counted, but since the ruin of Azkaban there had already been a lot of kissing going on, and the reasonable thing to conclude was that if their victims could have protected themselves, they would have. <em>I could produce a bit of silver mist, but that was back when there was hope.</em></p><p>The little witch was sitting motionless on the floor when she found her. Her name was Oukda, after the Oukdazaung that guarded the sacred temple, the type of nat that was responsible for Ron's condition. <em>Apparently it was more likely to attack him in the first place.</em></p><p>There was no response as Hannah sat down next to her, either from her or from the guards in the room. She was a valuable hostage, and potentially worth something in an exchange of prisoners, so it made sense to keep the locals from learning who she was and killing her out of anger. They were not particularly worried she would run from her only source of food any more than that she would kill herself, and she had shown no such inclination thus far. The Hufflepuff could not quite say what she expected to determine by visiting the prisoner, but could think of plenty of times in her life where she had been surprised.</p><p>All that happened was that she observed the younger witch was able to produce water for herself if she had a wand or a more traditional weizza stick. <em>This is pointless; I have to write a letter to Dean before he destroys the Philosopher's Stone. Getting access to the floo network would be good enough.</em></p><p>She knew that there were no plans in the immediate future to have a permanent base in Burma, but Moody had to be communicating with the Order somehow. There was no way he had simply made up his own orders and reported the results when he felt like it. <em>I should ask him, but he's always busy with talking to the rebels in Burmese. Oh well, I have to interrupt him sooner or later.</em></p><p>Going back to the hut where the meeting was taking place, mercifully it seemed like they were taking a break.</p><p>"Sir, I need to contact Dean and Parvati."</p><p>"Stone duty?" She nodded. "They're off the star chart. We couldn't find them if we wanted to; can't risk losing the damn thing before it's destroyed." <em>They might be protected by a fidelius, then.</em></p><p>"They're not connected to the network, then. Can anyone owl them?"</p><p>"Bird wouldn't know where to go. They're to report in after they've destroyed the Stone, not before." He sighed a little. "Apparently the boy's not bad at dark magic. He told us he would be using Fiendfyre."</p><p>"Aren't they going to save some of the Elixir in case we need it?"</p><p>"No. Any amount of it could be used to revive Voldemort after he dies again."</p><p>"How do we know he'll be fine if he dies again?" Hannah asked. "How do we know he will die again?" She could easily imagine that scenario; she had already gone over it at least a thousand times in her mind. If the Death Eaters essentially won, which meant deposing or taking control of several governments, there was serious doubt even thinking about killing their master while in Europe, and they would be expanding their control as soon as possible. <em>If Malfoy has some kind of plan to kill him, he'd better start now. </em>The idea that blood purists were against him and only supported him to get rid of their enemies and remain close to him was starting to seem hollow.</p><p>"He has to die. The sooner the better. Blood purists can wring their hands and bemoan what he's done for their cause, but they wouldn't be alive without someone as powerful as he is." It seemed like a less than paranoid thing to not account for the possibility of Voldemort living forever, but she supposed that was what Ron would call a loss condition. <em>Well, we already hit a few of our loss conditions and we're still fighting.</em></p><p>"Is he really the one who released Grindelwald?"</p><p>"That's probably why. A dark wizard like that could tear through them. They would get him eventually, but not before their ranks were decimated." She nodded, remembering the description of what had happened in Azkaban. "Why do you think he got a bunch of beardless boys to do it?"</p><p>"I don't know."</p><p>"The adults wouldn't be persuaded so easily. They would probably kill Grindelwald in his cell and polyjuice themselves to resemble him for a few years. Voldemort expects him to distance, so he doesn't expect to see Grindelwald, just see the effects of his release. If one of his trusted servants reported a few strange wizards taking over Iceland, it would be within expectations."</p><p>Since hearing about what Ron's brother had discovered there from an emergency Patronus sent by Professor McGonagall, Hannah had learned that Iceland was one of the countries with a relatively small magical population. Because the inhabitants were the descendants of those who had essentially been chased there by Harald Bluetooth, there was a perception among wizards with more choice about where to live that there was no pride to be had in living on that particular island. Knowing an iota about Grindelwald's flare for symbolism, she could imagine reasons beyond the practical for his making it a base of operations.</p><p>"How do we know he doesn't have some other way of coming back?" she asked.</p><p>"He'd have used it sooner. Dumbledore told me there's a dark ritual that might do it, but no one's ever beaten him and lived to tell about it. If he had someone like that, it'd be a damn sight easier than stealing the Philosopher's Stone from Hogwarts, assuming he could get the help of one of his old servants. Don't know any of the other details. Dumbledore said he took care of it."</p><p>The implicit statement of trust there seemed all the more valuable coming from Alastor Moody, but even him could she hardly fault for trusting the former Headmaster. There were times she had to remind herself he was human; in the first three years of her Hogwarts career, it seemed the only problem with him was that there was only one of him. <em>Why is it that good ancient wizards die for real, but we're still dealing with the bad ones?</em></p><p>Not for the first time, she wondered how Voldemort managed to preserve himself beyond the grave, or if he could really be considered dead at all, if he had managed to manifest as a shade that could possess people. However much he most likely wanted people to believe it, the most likely explanation was not that he was simply too powerful for death. <em>He must have made a horcrux. We know he most likely never set out to learning how to make them while at Hogwarts, but there is still decades between his school days and his death, and we only have what the Death Eaters seem to think he did between 1960 and his death, well, defeat.</em></p><p>The ex-Auror was back to to talking with the Burmese, though she had been too lost in thought to notice when that resumed. <em>In any case, it seems relatively inarguable that he was defeated. Most of his followers dropped him and the rest were in prison, unless they got out of it somehow. </em>It was her understanding that Alecto Carrow, who had been an Inspector when Hannah was a first-year, had negotiated with the Department of Mysteries to avoid Azkaban by trading them enough credible lies to fill in the holes in the story of Sirius Black. <em>They needed the public to see someone get punished by the Ministry, and it would not have been enough had he just been a regular Death Eater, or a former ally who turned traitor, he had to be Voldemort's second in command with an even longer list of offences than his master.</em></p><p>She remembered that unlike Sirius, however, Alecto Carrow died in Azkaban, if not in the way that most inmates did.</p><p>"That's something," she said to herself. "The Ministry really would have preferred that he die and disappear. If what we learned from the tour guide was accurate at all, he was in there for the longest sentence, or perhaps the most excessive sentence, so he was meant to be there until his death. <em>We need to get him in contact with Lovegood. </em>She nearly kicked herself for finding herself in agreement with Ron on one of their last points of contention. <em>Was I holding out hope that I could tell him he was wrong about something by the time he wakes up? Can I even say that he's asleep?</em></p><p>Though the nat-kadaw had explained his condition, she doubted she could do more than reproduce the words when talking to anyone expect Terry, who had actually studied spirits. Uselessly, she thought about how he missed him, his plans, his calm reasoning, even how hopeless he was for Hermione. When she thought about how he joined their group, an uncharitable way of looking at it was that he was just trying to get with her, but two years of observing his general character was enough to say that he really did believe in what they were doing.</p><p>A silver cat appeared before her.</p><p>"Hello, Professor," she said, waiting for the message. "I'll get the Auror."</p><p>"This is something I wanted to tell you, Hannah." She froze. No one had called her by her given name in days. With Moody it was either 'Miss' or 'Abbott', both together on occasion.</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"I understand you are acquainted with Miss Bones."</p><p>"She was my friend, yes." <em>That's how I would describe her. We were never really allies, and we ended up on opposite sides, but she was always my friend. She always cared about me, probably even more than I cared about her.</em></p><p>"Three hours ago it came to my attention that her soul is being held as a hostage. The Order of the Phoenix has been asked to return you to prevent any sort of misunderstanding in the negotiations with the dementors, who seem to have claimed all of Scotland and parts of Norway as their territory."</p><p>"We can communicate with them?" She remembered it was not a live conversation. <em>There must be some people who can. It's not an important question anyway.</em></p><p>"It is our understanding that they are using people who are tangentially close to us, including Sturgis Podmore's children, as leverage to have us sacrifice the high ground in some respect." Hannah tried to understand. "We do not, however, intend to go along with their plans. Negotiating with them in any matter would neither to me nor to the world resemble the ideals of the late Headmaster. The world has an infinite supply of innocent bystanders, and only a handful of heroes. We do not intend to trade the latter for the prior."</p><p>The Patronus paused to allow her to think about what had just been said, though she only knew because it was not talking; her face was in her hands. <em>Good thing this stupid spell can't see me. </em>She was having some trouble wrapping her mind around the injustice of her friend's soul being eaten.</p><p>"From a more practical perspective, the Ministry has no intention of allowing the dementors to have more territory. Innocent people will be sacrificed to them, as well as, I would expect, common criminals like wand thieves and tax evaders. If innocent people are not sacrificed to them, they will press on through the meager wall of Patroni that has been erected along that of Hadrian." The silver cat looked down as if unwilling to meet her eyes for a moment. "I suspect that you are aware I am telling you how the negotiation will work because I would help relieve some of our guilt-"</p><p>"Not really, Professor. I was not thinking about your motivations," she said, knowing she could not be heard.</p><p>"All the same, these things are true, whatever reason I may have to tell you. It may be a moment before we speak again." There was a pause. "Hannah, you were not one of mine, but in classes and out of them I was rather impressed by your consistency. While you probably think little of your discovery of a treatment option for Mr. Longbottom, your idea was the cornerstone of several discussions we have had in the Order thus far."</p><p>For a moment she thought the former Transfiguration teacher was hiding something from her, but there were probably entire years of discussions that she had missed. <em>The time to form the Order again was before we lost Dumbledore, not after. </em>She did not imagine she was alone in wishing she could have known.</p><p>Hannah was not listening to the parting words of the silver cat, but since they were from Professor McGonagall, could reasonably guess they were serious, concise, and fully heartfelt. <em>How does she even cast a Patronus? After everyone that she's lost... </em>She remembered something Hermione told her about how the charm was distinct from dark magic in the sense that it relied on a memory of happiness rather than the immediate state of happiness. Regular users were not likely to become influenced by it. Standing up, she held out her wand.</p><p>"<em>Expecto Patronum,</em>" she incanted, thinking of the time she escaped the Ministry school. Her memories of Ron were exciting, but such a mixture of emotions both from the experience itself and the surrounding circumstances that she knew the spell would not have been terribly good. What she saw before her as the shine died down a little was a bee. She knew just from looking that it was no less powerful than any other Patronus, but it was definitely the smallest she had ever seen. There was a lot to unpack about the form it took, she knew, but there were more important things. "Find Dean and Parvati. Tell them we need some Elixir for Ron."</p><p>Moody came outside right as she sent the silver bee away.</p><p>"That's a bit more impressive than the form it took before, Miss. Short of it is, they're still upset."</p><p>"Well, they can stay upset. We didn't come here to do whatever they wanted, we came here to do the right thing. They won't have a victory with the hostage we gave them, but they'll have peace, if that's what they really want."</p><p>"That they will. Bet you my working eye they haven't asked around the village what they want." He pointed up the river. "I saw a shrine to the dead on the way here. Couldn't read the text through the trees, but it looked pretty new."</p><p>"We should go back over there before we leave," she said. "I just wish we could take Ron."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0048"><h2>48. Beware the Enemies of the Heir</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Draco could almost feel the noose tightening around the neck of his master. Another body had already appeared, though this one in Latvia, fortunately burned beyond recognition except for a hand with long fingernails. <em>That, however, is not the true threat. The Dark Lord would be wise to flee when he loses his horcrux.</em></p><p>Before just twelve hours earlier, it had been all but a certainty that the Lord Voldemort had only escaped death because of that particular dark artefact, but now they had it out of Amycus Carrow himself. The young Slytherin allowed himself something of a satisfied smile as he went through his classes. <em>The Death Eaters have won.</em></p><p>It had been a plan secret enough that Draco had not been informed of it. Apparently, Selwyn and his father had conspired to send representatives into the Magical United States, which had previously been deemed too volatile for anyone but the very desperate. They insisted, however, that if done carefully, by sending the right people to the right groups, they could grow their numbers substantially, and the Dark Lord would support the plan if he could be bothered with it, though such concerns were beneath him, of course. The blood purists could be quite sure the organized crime groups would be receptive to those who fought for the Lord Voldemort as a way out of their own criminal histories. With Macnair still in Britain acting the government official, Carrow had gone with Lestrange along with a few of their minions with rap sheets.</p><p>What they had not told the Dark Lord loyalists was that they already knew one of the wizards at the meeting, a Quebecois researcher of dark magic by the name of Kaspir Desrosiers and a lifelong friend of Halstead Selwyn. When one of the leaders of organized crime, Vincenzo di Alcantara, asked the obvious question of how their master managed the enviable task of returning to life, and when pressed by general disbelief upon saying that it was a secret, he admitted that a horcrux had been created in the United Kingdom in secret, and apparently the Lord Voldemort had no idea that it would work until he discovered that he was not exactly dead, where he had previously believed them to be entirely unreliable, inclined to develop their own personalities and work against their creators. He was quite content with the one he had, and had no intention of creating any more, as he had it on good authority that splitting the soul more than once would only result in an unstable entity that would continue to divide indefinitely.</p><p>
  <em>Of course, we are perfectly aware that the cited good authority is none other than Horace Slughorn.</em>
</p><p>Macnair had, as an interrogator for the Department, volunteered to see what could be gained from the old Potions master as soon as he was dismissed by Saint Mungo's and promptly returned to the Ministry school in the process of being reconstructed. In the school days of Tom Riddle, there had apparently been mounting concerns after one too many students started asking about 'dark matters' and the Slytherin Head at the time decided he had quite enough of it and would not be held responsible in the event that anyone either found the Chamber of Secrets or started using dark magic. He started lying to the students when they asked questions whenever he did not simply answer that he did not know.</p><p>"Malfoy," someone called out as he walked between classes. He turned around to see a student who would have ignored him a few months ago. "We have the school. The teachers know not to contradict the vassals."</p><p>"That would be splendid to know, if I did not already know it. Has the deployment to other schools started?"</p><p>"Yes. Three to Uagadou, three to the Chinese school, and the rest are being trained in their responsibilities." Draco nodded. He had kept his expectations reasonable with how quickly the takeover could be accomplished, but it had been quite simple to him that if the Death Eaters could have control over one school, and the children from the most worthwhile witches and wizards from several countries, they could do even better with more. There were things that could not be bought with gold, and children were one of them. He had already heard that the Dark Lord had quite foolishly given up the Philosopher's Stone, but not before buying some previously disturbing percentages of assets around the world, mostly through shells the Death Eaters managed without his asking too many questions.</p><p>As the Russian wizard left him and he went to his final class of the day, he supposed that the Lord Voldemort could not be expected to manage every last detail of his organization, and it made sense to leave certain matters to trusted subordinates, but his most trusted followers were always the most capable, and the most capable were, as to be expected, not always the least ambitious. <em>If one thing is certain, however, my pity for the loyalists is at an end. They are simply too foolish to survive, and they were contributing to the problem we had with the Dark Lord.</em></p><p>On the subject of losing the Stone, Bulstrode's death and his wife's disappearance were inconvenient, but the man himself had not been terribly useful. His daughter was seeing a lot of Goyle as he understood it, and he supposed it would be unreasonable for him to make a rule against relations between vassals, since that would mean the simple majority of the students at Durmstrang would be out in the cold, and he did have a girlfriend himself, even if she happened to be in another country. Though it was, strictly speaking, the honorable thing to do, he no longer had any intention of breaking up with the witch, and found himself growing more sympathetic to the perspective of the late Avery, who had told him no later than second year that fathering bastards would result in half-bloods, who were acknowledged to be the tolerable response to the reality of their situation.</p><p>The last time Draco saw the two vassals sitting together, they were not saying anything, but the wizard had a hand on the shoulder of the witch. <em>At least the offspring will be pure. I am sure that if I were to ask Pansy or someone who would care about this sort of thing, she would say they are a good match for each other, and coo in a flea of sympathy on the back of pity.</em></p><p>When classes were over, he walked outside to meet with a few representatives. Marcus Flint, the grown son and heir of the Flint family, primarily sworn in fealty to House Black, waited with Travers, on break from his other international duties. <em>An odd pair, I suppose, but a pair none the less.</em></p><p>"Good afternoon, Mafloy," the young wizard said. "I never thought I would say that in this weather." A silent sympathy could be felt. The winters of Britain were harsh enough, but the springs were much milder and whatever chill there was in the morning usually cleared by midday.</p><p>"I never thought I would speak English again," he responded. "The Dark Lord and his whims are full of surprises. There is no hope for the Heir, to put it rather plainly. I have reached out to him as earnestly and with as much truth as I dared, and he has rejected us. The legacy of the Great Salazar Slytherin is nothing to him but a source of power."</p><p>"It is a source of power he has the right to possess," Travers warned. "He was born with it."</p><p>"I am aware. I have learned, however, rather painfully, that not all born with great heritage have lived into it. Consider Sirius Black."</p><p>"He never worked with us," Flint said.</p><p>"Yes, that is why he is a traitor to his house. In another sense, Evan betrays the heirship by swearing exclusive fealty to the Lord Voldemort, who claims lineage from Gaunt, to be sure, but is a half-blood of no other note." A silence came and passed. "Perhaps those who believe themselves wise think I speak too soon, but those who know the truth and are committed to defending it will be bold enough to say it when it matters."</p><p>"In either case, we are going to Iceland. Grindelwald will recognize you from when you liberated him, and he will do well to remember the buttered side of the bread." Draco only nodded at the words of Travers. An invitation had been sent to the Death Eaters bearing the unmistakable seal of the dark wizard, an old fashioned way of verifying one's identity, but an effective one nonetheless. They were quite certain that the letter had not been altered in any way between inscription and arrival. Travers said he had it from Aunt Bella, though the last time he had heard about her responsibilities she was on her way to Havana.</p><p>"You said you saw my aunt. Are you entirely sure she was not using Polyjuice potion?" he asked.</p><p>"Grindelwald would've been able to tell and he'd have killed her. I did know her before she went to prison. Come to think of it, I knew her when she was in school, though the last twenty years have been unkind to her. Apparently the old warlock said she looked just like old Vinda Rosier. There is some relation there, Druella, her mother- your grandmother-"</p><p>"She was a Rosier, yes," Draco supplied.</p><p>Nothing more needed to be established. They were going to a small fishing village, one easily cut off from the rest of the world. The youngest wizard had been excused from all of his classes for the rest of the day, and had been awarded academic credit for his exploits in service to the Dark Lord, as it was becoming more of an open secret that he currently served as Headmaster. <em>He may have held a faculty meeting and simply informed everyone who did not already know. What concerns me is how the Xian knew how to find him. The Death Eater who serves as our embassy to China is a loyalist.</em></p><p>In mere moments they were in Iceland.</p><p>As he knew he should have expected, it was substantially warmer, but if at all possible he would do well not to get used to it. The landscape was quite gentle, though there was more rugged terrain and even mountains in the distance. He thought he was standing on grass, but it looked oddly like some sort of lichen.</p><p>"I have been under the impression the wizards here are under the Danish Ministry. I presume that is who they call when the dark wizards turn up?"</p><p>"More or less," Travers answered. "The nonmagical didn't have the same good relations, to say the least." Flint seemed to have developed a more Laconic philosophy on life, perhaps because nothing he said had ever been terribly insightful. The oldest of the three of them was more likely to say something useful, but only before or after the opposite.</p><p>The three of them walked to a simple, cozy looking dwelling, though for the village it would have passed for a large building. One of Grindelwald's lieutenants greeted them as soon as they came in, though he wore an odd expression.</p><p>"Good day; I had thought that we had already spoken to a representative from the Death Eaters. Perhaps you have not heard, but a representative from the Order is here now." Draco had his wand out. "Though there is no Secrecy in this village, it is firmly neutral territory. I would hope you bring your young up with an understanding of diplomacy."</p><p>"Wands away, then," Travers said. "I trust we have your guarantee they will not start anything?"</p><p>"They're not a government," the unidentified wizard said as though he had just asked if they would buy votes with programs or change the historical texts to suit the current narrative. "It's a young wizard with hand-me-down robes and garish red hair."</p><p>"I can only imagine who that might be," Draco muttered. As he walked in, he noticed it was not any Weasley he had seen before, but it was certainly one of them. His robes were not as old as the Hogwarts robes used by almost all of them, but probably chosen to redirect suspicion. He had with him a witch who looked remarkably like his Aunt Bellatrix, but was not the same either.</p><p>"Who the devil are you?"</p><p>"I'm Charlie Weasley. This is Andromeda Tonks."</p><p>"She's not my aunt-"</p><p>"My father Cygnus Black would agree with you, had he not passed shortly after you started school-"</p><p>"Then you're the traitor, Andromeda."</p><p>"At least you know my name, I suppose. If you had ever seen my face, or even a representation of it, you might have some idea of the incredible resemblance to Bellatrix, but you were denied that opportunity. To lay my cards on the table, as it were, I did not come here to kill you, or to exact any manner of revenge for being removed from my station, as that was the best thing my father and mother ever did for me. I came here because it has been my responsibility to follow developments coming out of Durmstrang, where I understand you have amassed a following loyal to you specifically."</p><p>"So I have. Despite the cobbled heritage of the school, the majority has discovered the truth."</p><p>"They have discovered strength and fear," the blood traitor said. "They follow you because you freed our host here, not because you have convinced them. I came here to tell you that this is the exact way that the Death Eaters intend to establish a state ideology. Every night at the dinner table when I was growing up, my father told me that sooner or later, the mudbloods would have to be systematically eradicated, slowly and carefully enough that they would never realize it until it was too late. They had a wand to our necks in the form of exposing us to the muggles, so the priority would be to keep them out of the most important offices, the better to keep them from realizing what we were planning."</p><p>Draco scowled. He had talked with numerous blood purists in his day, and when each of them spoke of the truth, he spoke of purging the lies that stood in the way. He had to admit it would be rather cathartic to see if those who wrote about the witch trials could survive fire charms themselves, but it hardly seemed necessary for the purposes of spreading the truth. <em>As soon as those blood traitors are out of their offices, there will be no need to kill them.</em></p><p>"I am not your father," he said. "I care not at all about what he has told you of his plans, unfulfilled as they are today-"</p><p>"Yes, for this reason there is some point in talking to you."</p><p>"I wouldn't be listening to a blood traitor," Travers advised. "Looks like the other one has had the good sense to remain silent."</p><p>"Don't read too much into it," Weasley said. "We don't agree on everything, just because we're both blood traitors. I hear from some of our younger members that the Ministry brats called them traitors to their government, same as you lot."</p><p>"Draco, you must understand that it is not too late to change. In the Order of the Phoenix, there is more to the moral world than allies and enemies; our principles are not mere mechanisms of gaining and securing power. If you were to renounce your previous allegiance and forswear plans to murder people for their blood status, we would welcome you. We have many differences of opinion among us, and we would regard your views the same as those of any other student of your year. Perhaps misinformed, in my view, but certainly not a threat in and of themselves."</p><p>"You only desire my following at Durmstrang," he accused. "Dumbledore had the chance to take the Ministry at any point, and he could have won the war in a stroke by separating the Death Eaters from their master; all he would have to do would be to publicly acknowledge the truth as we have always known it. He did not take power, though, nor did he resist the effort to teach lies in school. He deserves a nominal amount of credit as a truly committed fence sitter for refusing to allow the Fudge government to destroy the books of dark magic, until his inevitable death made that decision irrelevant after the school itself was destroyed."</p><p>A silence came and passed. It was interrupted by the return of Grindelwald, through the door as would come the muggle who followed him. The man wore a strange expression, like that of a child who had just lost his parents in a war.</p><p>"Ah, it is pleasant to see you again, Malfoy. I brought our guest here today to demonstrate that he and his kind are not to be hated, nor are they to be feared." The man in the distinctly muggle suit said nothing; he only looked around with an openmouthed stare. <em>The shock has not worn off, then. </em>The wizards and witch in the room in turn stared back at him, though they could tell he likely felt rather like a zoo animal, perhaps a pangolin or anything else from the endangered species list. "Does anyone have any questions?"</p><p>"Are there any of your kind anywhere who know of our existence?" Draco asked, taking point.</p><p>"I'm... afraid I can't rightly say," the Icelander said. "I don't know what everyone else knows. I truly don't believe I'm qualified to represent everyone in the world who can't do magic." He paused. "If I could say anything, though, I would have to agree with those saying we don't mean you any harm. I really can't imagine what we might have against you."</p><p>"We have nothing to fear from squibs," Grindelwald said, satisfied with the muggle's explanation. "How different are they from muggles who know of our existence? The Statute, you see, was a mistake and not one we should continue for how long we have spent making it. We have spent far too many resources trying to keep them in the dark, when it is much simpler to demonstrate their place in the natural order of things. Some of us, to be sure, may die, for example a child may be shot by a begrudging muggle, but in the long run far fewer will be spared. Without the Statute, wizards need not fear going to prison for practicing magic, they need not even fear conflict into which the muggles could drag us."</p><p>"Are you implying their wars would end?" Travers asked. "Hyenas and lions haven't stopped fighting."</p><p>"I suppose they have not, because we have not made pets of them," the dark wizard answered. "They could fight for our amusement, to be sure, but what would be the point of that? Their conflicts are not interesting or noteworthy; they concern themselves with skin color and imaginary lines." Even Draco could tell he was oversimplifying things, but he supposed there was a point to be had. "When they see we are superior, they will unite against us. I have every expectation of this. It will be all of them against all of us, but they would never dare attack us outright."</p><p>"There are scores of them for every one of us-" he started.</p><p>"Perhaps there are, but what good will that do them? They will recognize that conflict with us is perfectly futile, and that will be the end of it. We are quite capable of being benevolent rulers." He turned to the young Slytherin. "Perhaps you have heard the Burmese perspective on Secrecy is quite different from our own. With no secrecy anywhere, there will be no need for disagreement between magical nations."</p><p>If Grindelwald's ideas sounded utopian to the point of being unrealistic to everyone else, there was no visible disapproval universally. The muggle's expression had not changed from being scared and disillusioned, the Death Eaters had pensive, opaque expressions, and to their credit the Order Members were glaring with barely disguised anger. <em>Well, perhaps you should have listened to us if you wanted to remain under the Statute.</em></p><p>There were however, no objections. Instead there was a long silence during which everyone seemed to stare at everyone else, much to the increasing concern of the solitary muggle.</p><p>"Excellent," the dark wizard said. "If you have doubted either my beliefs or my convictions, doubt them no longer. If they are not directly proven to be ill-founded and incorrect, my first act as ruler over the magical world will be to reveal its existence to the muggles."</p>
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<a name="section0049"><h2>49. Interlude: A Picture of Albus Dumbledore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There had not been visitors in quite some time.</p><p>The Vitez, Rupnik, who was usually around somewhere had disappeared, most likely on some other misguided mission from Grindelwald. His old friend, dark wizard that he was, liked having him around in the form of a portrait as a vain sort of challenge to himself; he would prove the rightness of what he did to himself and those in his immediate surrounding by resisting the argument of his own proverbial Jiminy Cricket. <em>It was a mistake to leave my portrait with Gellert. Perhaps if I had less pressing matters to attend, I would have rewritten my old will.</em></p><p>That document, written at a time when he could reasonably predict his own death, in the late nineteen seventies, left most of his wealth to the school, which he had not thought would be reduced to rubble a year after he left it, but then, there had been quite a lot he had not foreseen. It was no great shock; long gone were the days when he believed he knew everything. <em>One wonders how much I could possibly claim to know these days, considering I have passed on, and this painting was made of a memory of me.</em></p><p>As he understood it, the magic of the portrait was limited to not only the knowledge of its creator, but of what could be captured by any artist, no matter how knowledgeable or skilled. Things like voice and appearance were easy, even a personality could be observed, but no man knew his soul. <em>It is not a wonder that I do not see this representation as myself, but only for what it is. What I truly am, or even a more accurate representation, I would not want to hang anywhere in Hogwarts.</em></p><p>It was fortunate that he had managed to communicate with Minerva for a time, and not until Hogwarts was destroyed did the Ministry lawyers come through the ruin and send his portrait to Grindelwald's cell, though the process was quite controversial. He had spent about three weeks over the summer in the office of Bartimaeus Crouch, though unlike his predecessor he was not being brought in for advice.</p><p>"I am afraid I do not know where the last remnant of the books of dark magic has gone after it left our esteemed library, Minister," he had explained. "When Mister Goldstein, Smith, and Harper, along with the late Miss Weasley, saw fit to discontinue their enrollment, they absconded with quite the collection amid the confusion of battle."</p><p>"Perhaps it would have been more prudent to destroy the collection when we suggested it."</p><p>"I think rather differently on the subject. As much as it disheartens me when students feel the need to leave, that they took such measures to preserve the knowledge is the only reason it continues to exist. It appears that as much as I thought the school to be a safe place, it appears a castle mainly serves to protect the inhabitants from outside threats, and is only a bastion to those willing to defend it. I warn you, Minister, being somewhat better than the alternative, while noteworthy, will not motivate other wizards to risk their lives." He sighed. "As little as I wanted to keep account of students liking me, the teachers, the school, it seemed the only students who particularly respected any combination thereof considered me an enemy."</p><p>"There were exceptions," Crouch responded without looking up from his work, almost certainly thinking of those who had accused him of doing what had most likely been his son's actions.</p><p>"Exceptions is precisely the term I would use, Barty, though the best people always are. I did not have nearly the perfectly loyal army Cornelius feared, as you knew, but did not state to the public."</p><p>"True enough, irrelevant though it is today," he dismissed. "Weasley, I need to see the next candidate." Percival was not there; he was calling into the next room.</p><p>"The prospective Department Head for Magical Transportation, sir?"</p><p>"No, he pointlessly resigned in protest, accomplishing nothing. I spoke of the witch I removed for blood purist leanings, in the Department of the Interior."</p><p>"Leanings, sir?"</p><p>"She was Selwyn's cousin. Perhaps I should have used the term 'connection'. I believe her replacement is one Ed Owen?"</p><p>"Barty, Mundungus Fletcher called that wizard a liar and a reprobate," the portrait admonished. "Perhaps the past is as irrelevant as you claim-"</p><p>"Firstly, I have conducted a full background check of Owen. I know where every member of his family sleeps at night, and I know everything he has ever done. There is not a trace of either blood purism or dark magic in his memory or his heritage, making him an exceptional candidate to clean out the Ministry in terms of character. What remains to be seen is whether or not he has the ability."</p><p>"What was your second point?" the picture asked after a pause.</p><p>"Unlike Cornelius, I have no intention of asking your advice, alive or as a specter." Crouch waved his wand and the wizard came in.</p><p>After that, it seemed the Minister saw fit to leave him with no memory until the portrait left the office, for the purpose of being taken to Grindelwald's cell. There was talk in the new government of doing away with the officiation of wills, the better for the public to collect the funds from the dead, but it was a low priority and really only something they would introduce once the wands were all collected, or at least registered and warded. The representation of Albus Dumbledore assumed that he could be targeted by memory charms, something that might never have even been attempted on portraits of Headmasters in the past, when he took into account how much they seemed to like talking about their time in his seat.</p><p>When he arrived at Nurmengard, it happened to be the first time any version of himself had seen the place, and he had to say that though the style annoyed him, and clawed at his preference for subtlety and sensibility, the design was very much Gellert. He was taken to the cell as expected, but his old friend had surprisingly little to say to him after all the years that had passed, probably seeing him as only a painting and not the real Albus, but that was at least fair. They spoke only briefly, after which time the living ignored the dead, as though he were not there at all, and it was easier than expected to put up with the disregard. <em>Perhaps I was not too cruel to my predecessors after all.</em></p><p>Regarding them, they were mostly unimpressive. Some were in charge during good times and some in bad, but rarely had there been any great improvement brought about by any of them. Quietly he supposed that was one of the merits, or perhaps one of the detractors of hiring exclusively the very old to the position. They reminded him every so often, surely in their opinion not too often, that he had one of the longest terms out of any of them, but that was because of the Philosopher's Stone. While it was in his possession, he had extracted some of the Elixir to extend his lifespan that he could at least survive the war, though it seemed the war had either started back up again, or never finished in the first place. <em>I can still remember the night I thought it was all over.</em></p><p>"Oh, you're still here?" Rupnik asked, rousing him from his memories.</p><p>"I take it you are back from Iceland?" he asked, answering the obvious question with another. "I suppose I have moved around more than most paintings, but I can be reasonably confident that I am not moving again."</p><p>"I met one of your old students."</p><p>"A Death Eater, perhaps? I confess, the only time I got to know a student was when he or she transgressed. I never enjoyed lecturing teenagers on disciplinary matters, but it was better than having to expel Mr. Rosier for violating a witch and then boasting about it."</p><p>"No, we hardly have concern for them. Sooner or later they will abandon their leader in favor of our own, and will resume his hiding, wherever it was he was supposed to be dead."</p><p>"If you intend to take his followers from him, some are more difficult than others, and I would advise you to take the ones who are the most loyal to him, not those who only support him because they feel he is winning. There may not be many of them left"</p><p>"We know that. When our master defeats him, there will be no one else they want to serve more."</p><p>"A bold prediction," he observed, speaking no more on the concept for the safety of the innocent and the mostly so.</p><p>"You've figured out the great secret, haven't you?" Rupnik asked.</p><p>"Perhaps I have. More than anything else, it was always a wonder why Severus Snape decided to take a teaching position at Hogwarts. I suppose I offered, but I never thought he would accept..."</p><p>"I have other matters to attend. I'll have you watch the prisoner."</p><p>"Prisoner? Do you intend to reopen Nurmengard as a prison?" It seemed like a confident thing for Grindelwald to do, since there was serious doubt he could live with the irony if he were forced back into it. The only thing that seemed more doubtful was that any of his enemies would choose to take him prisoner rather than killing him. "Who is this prisoner?"</p><p>"He's one of your old students, calls himself Electrum. We told you about picking up one of the ones holding Weasley captive; couldn't get him to say anything about the British Ministry. I figure a few days in here might loosen his tongue."</p><p>The Vitez left the room, probably going back to Iceland, where he understood the dark wizard and his associates had made a sort of secret base. A young wizard entered the cell, needing no one to force him in. He sat down facing the bars without making a sound.</p><p>"You seem rather confident you will be rescued," the picture said. "I would think you would look around for any vulnerability in the cell. I confess, even I did."</p><p>"I don't think you would have found anything," the younger wizard said. "For the record, I am not completely confident in my release. Hestia is plenty skilled, but it is not worth the risk to her life to break me out of here, especially when release is more probable. Continental authorities will deal with Grindelwald and his prison will be defunct."</p><p>"Perhaps they would, but I very much doubt Voldemort would grant them the opportunity."</p><p>"Voldemort released him. Why would he come back to kill Grindelwald right after that?"</p><p>"Oh, not immediately after. I suspect whatever purpose of letting the hero of his school days out of prison has already served its purpose, but I understand that there are more immediate threats around him. Aside from that, the Heir of Slytherin might be in danger, and he may need to see to that."</p><p>"The Heir of Syltherin? Evan? Where is he?"</p><p>"From the conversations I have been fortunate enough to overhear, one of Grindelwald's old loyalists at Durmstrang, probably a teacher, Evan, a young wizard named Erik Crabbe, and a witch have assigned themselves to a mission. Word from McLaggen is that their new plan is to lead the remainder of your friends to an old house in Albania where Nott was imprisoned by the Death Eaters with his son. Their original plan was to curse your associates in the back, but if the Heir is going there himself for unspecified reasons, they decided it was better to let him kill them, else die in the attempt, and then clean up whatever remained."</p><p>"Neither this self-appointed Heir nor any admirers of your old friend are going to defeat Hestia."</p><p>"I am afraid that, being an heir, Evan, as he likely wishes to be called, is not self-appointed at all. He had all this thrust upon him at the latest when he was a year old, and has probably been trained with dark magic since not long after that. It does not surprise me at all that he can talk to snakes." The old warlock in the picture shook his head. "Regarding Hestia, unless you refer to Hestia Carrow, a very unfortunate young witch, I suppose I lose nothing by telling you she was one of mine the whole time."</p><p>"What do you have to gain by lying here?"</p><p>"What indeed. My greatest concern is that to aid in protecting Neville Longbottom, I gave her James Potter's invisibility cloak, and if she dies in battle, it may well fall into the entirely wrong hands." <em>Some would disagree, of course.</em></p><p>Electrum had taken to pacing the cell.</p><p>"Firstly, it's impossible that she'll lose."</p><p>"I suppose she does have the numbers advantage. As all things that have not come to pass, it remains to be seen. Thank you for assuring me with a modicum of hope."</p><p>"Secondly, it's impossible she ever worked for you. Crouch did background checks on each one of us, even Megan."</p><p>"I am not surprised. Barty and Dolores, may she rest in peace, were always cautious of anyone who graduated from Hogwarts. Hestia, he would find, has been friends with the right people including Enid Bagnold, though you may know her as Ebony, since she was a little girl, and as far as I can tell, she believes in much the same ideology of only two sides existing, one being Voldemort and the other being 'anti-Voldemort'. At the same time, I have seen since her school days that she possesses great character. She is unfailingly honest and true, she believes in protecting the innocent, and she is capable of standing up to her friends. For this reason, I have trusted her with every secret she wished to know as she worked with Augusta Longbottom on the Secret Order."</p><p>"Are you implying the Order of the Phoenix never disbanded?"</p><p>"Indeed. There were some members who were not informed that it continued, but essentially, yes, the Order never disbanded because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the supposed death of Voldemort. My old friend Elphias Doge searched the whole world over for anything that could be considered a sign that our enemy was still out there, as many of us suspected. It was not just for the Ministry that the end of the war did not really feel like the end." <em>I only hope they managed to protect young Neville.</em></p><p>Electrum said nothing for what seemed like a whole minute, perhaps more. He had stopped pacing, perhaps because it caught up to him that pacing wasted energy. <em>That was something of which I had to remind myself every so often. I do not look forward to waiting in here until we are equally old and grey, though that may well happen. Hestia has higher priorities than his rescue, and Voldemort taking over this prison is a matter of when, not if. He did not for nothing release Grindelwald, and not without plots underneath plots to kill him.</em></p><p>It was not as if Tom thought of hopelessly convoluted plans; his designs were always simple enough to work, and since he had never needed anyone, he essentially achieved his goals alone while having his allies defend him, whether directly or in a broader sense. To put it in Quidditch terms, there was one Seeker and six Beaters.</p><p>"Why did the dark wizards free Weasley and keep me prisoner?" the younger wizard asked at length. "Are they on his side?"</p><p>"Regrettably, the Order is hardly a side of its own. I would think they want him and others like him to join their side, or what will become it. Grindelwald is quite confident in his ability to win over many of the Death Eaters, by his proof that the loss of Secrecy would not be too terrible for wizards, though I have my reservations on the subject and as much concern for what will become of the muggles. Though he has not said this, I would imagine he intends to influence magical governments that have opposed the Statute, or even its implementation."</p><p>"Whether Secrecy is good or bad for wizards, it is the law, and the presumption that the muggleborn would side with their parents as opposed to the wizarding world is harmful to them, not that it would be surprising-"</p><p>"Perhaps they do not let on, but the muggles have as many problems with the way they treat each other," the portrait said, interrupting his old student. It appeared Electrum was one of the many he did not know, and if he had seen the young wizard before, his face may have changed. "I would expect that even those from loving homes who were mistreated by the blood purists would still have a hard time turning against the world of magic. It is a truly wonderful thing, if not something that makes us any better or worse."</p><p>There was another pause. Perhaps the younger wizard did not care to hear the trifling comments of a portrait, else there were other things that occupied his mind. <em>If he begins to realize his circumstance, perhaps he will seek a way out of his cell. Continental authorities have no authority to go after Grindelwald where he is, and have not begun the extensive checks of loyalties in their own ranks. When the magical law enforcement personnel are reviewed, even the Vitez of Austria will first be checked for blood purist leanings. It will not be for far too long that they are asked if they support Grindelwald, and Voldemort has made sure of that. With his repeated acts of terror, as well as apparently killing everyone going after him, he and his followers have made themselves a greater threat, and a greater priority.</em></p><p>"I still have my wand. One of the lackeys made some comment about not separating a wizard from his wand."</p><p>"Yes, Grindelwald was quite confident that even with a wand, no one could escape his prison. Ambitious, perhaps, but I suppose it avoids running into problems with wizards who are just as skilled without wands."</p><p>"Is everything just a foolish demonstration of power for him?"</p><p>"I would not go so far. The prison he built demonstrates that he thought decades ahead of where he needed to be. I know this only from what he told me, but apparently he also instituted several reforms in Durmstrang once he had enough of a following. He very much intended to bend the entire world to his will, though in his lifetime he only expected to influence most of Europe." <em>Alas, I may have given him too much of the Elixir in my younger days. It seems he will live long enough to be killed by Voldemort.</em></p><p>It was a misconception that age was irrelevant to wizards of a certain caliber. The best part of no longer having a body was no longer having the aches and pains that came with senescence, though he knew there were potions for that. In his case as in that of Grindelwald, their long lives had been due to drinking Elixir of life, the first gradually to keep people from realizing, the second all at once to make himself a young man again. Voldemort, he suspected, used every enchantment, charm, and curse he knew on his own body to keep himself alive at all costs. <em>With the Stone, though, that would be irrelevant. As much as I am sure his followers have used it to produce gold, he most likely has enough Elixir in secret caches throughout the world that if he were ever reduced to a shade again, he would be able to recover.</em></p><p>"Well, if I have to be in prison, I'm not going to be in here with a monument to the failure that you were."</p><p>"What is it you believe I was trying to do?"</p><p>"If you were trying to preserve blood purism and dark magic, you did a good job of that. If you were trying to make sure that Voldemort still had allies for when he came back, you did a good job of that." Electrum seemed to think for a moment. "If you were trying to be a fence sitter and adhere to some pointless moral code until it killed everyone, you did a good job of that."</p><p>"My legacy is even worse than you know," the portrait said. "I should truly count myself lucky you do not realize I was once not unlike yourself. I remember I rather loved the phrase 'for the greater good' in my younger days."</p><p>"Pity," the younger wizard said, raising his wand.</p><p>"Ah. I take it our conversation is at an end. Good bye."</p><p>"<em>Incendio.</em>"</p>
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<a name="section0050"><h2>50. Regrouping</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Charlie did not remember where he had been when he got the call to go to somewhere in Africa to help defend an Order base against Bakr of the Draa. He could remember telling someone in Grindelwald's organization that he would be back and he wanted to continue the meeting if at all possible. He remembered thinking he was not leaving them without a representative, since Andromeda was still there, though his main reason for leaving her behind was because she had not seen a fight in years. He supposed someone more concerned with that sort of thing would think it was appropriate for her to return and defend the house that had been dedicated to her at her birth, but he was not one of them.</p><p>As he finished up the preparations with a man calling himself Diggle, he let his mind wander while talking and that thought slipped out somehow.</p><p>"Ah, I suppose you are right. Estranged from her family, she returns to reclaim her birthright and fight against dark wizards not too dissimilar from the ones who stripped her of her heritage?" <em>He's having too much fun with this. </em>"I suppose it would be at least equally apropos for her daughter to take up this struggle, and in terms of consequence she is the better duelist. It's a pity she ended up in Hufflepuff; she could have been something else entirely had she followed her mother."</p><p>The younger wizard only stared in response.</p><p>"Forgive an old man his sentimentalities. I know the world does not seek to spell out whatever would be the most poetic."</p><p>"I reckon I still have to thank you for delaying the enemy. We're on borrowed time as it is. Ron's friend has been making firecalls and owl post to every other base, but no one's answering, or they're telling her that they can't come straight away because they're dealing with something else."</p><p>"We should really have been doing something to ingratiate the locals. We dealt with a slight problem for the school a moment ago, but-"</p><p>"If anything will accomplish that, it's this. Bakr's realized he can't leave us alive because we're ruining things for him. If we survive this, we'll get more reasonable people to start thinking that Wahde really is some kind of spiritual successor to Dumbledore." Diggle nodded as he laid down more wards. She and Sirius had arrived the previous night with representatives from the Magicians, whose only condition was that they make some attempt to talk the dark wizards out of it.</p><p>As far as he understood it, that was essentially what they were doing, and as such he wished he could have been there sooner. He could not speak Arabic, or any other language that was commonly spoken in magical Africa, but he certainly felt like he had spent the last few months of his life negotiating, and to an extent that was what he had been doing with dragons. <em>They're highly intelligent creatures, and they're also highly proud. They only allowed themselves to be relocated to Romania without a fight because we convinced them it was the place to be.</em></p><p>"Are you saying you know this wizard?" a voice asked from behind him. He turned around to see Tonks, recognizing her from his school days, though her hair was black instead of pink for some reason. <em>That's right, she was outed as a metamorphamagus sometime in her fourth year. She had a breakdown and her features started changing in front of everyone.</em></p><p>"I'm not his best mate or anything," he said. "Every time Sirius and I were chasing Anthony, chasing Regulus, or whatever else, he wouldn't be far behind. At this point, I have to assume it has something to do with us."</p><p>"Is he in league with the Dark Lord?" Diggle asked.</p><p>"I don't think he's taking orders, or he doesn't think he is. He's basically trying to become the African equivalent, and to do that, he needs the feather of taking down Dumbledore's old followers for his cap." The older wizard seemed to understand.</p><p>"Who is making the plans for our defenses?" he asked. "There may be some last-minute changes that could serve us well."</p><p>"I've been making the broader strokes, since I had instruction on magical siege from old Moody," she said. "I left Mundungus in charge of scouting. Hermione came up with all the wards you're helping lay down.</p><p>"Perhaps you could describe the broader strokes," Diggle suggested.</p><p>"There's a fine layer of detection wards about a mile around. If they see them, they won't think anything of it, because they'll already know that we know they're coming. Inside them, there's a layer of ancient Chinese trap wards. It'll take them a while to get through those, and we should be able to use killing curses on them while they're stuck. Hermione can control a lot of the wards remotely; you should see what she's got going on inside."</p><p>It looked like the older wizard had, though Charlie had not.</p><p>"Are the wards connected?" he asked. "The dark wizards will almost certainly use brute force to try to get through."</p><p>"The wards are connected, but it's complicated. There are circles within circles, circles on the edges of circles, some of these can rotate- it's a confusing web that they would probably try to destroy rather than counter on its own terms."</p><p>Diggle shook his head at the idea.</p><p>"Many of the Death Eaters may behave like that because they are common criminals. Those aspiring to be or to serve the Dark Lord of Africa would use Legilimency."</p><p>"Is that a common ability around here?" Tonks asked.</p><p>"Not around here, but they've got friends from the Kalahari," Charlie said.</p><p>"There are legends about a sorcerer of darkness who would bring together dark wizards from all over the continent."</p><p>"Can we even fight something like that?"</p><p>"Bakr of the Draa is not the first dark wizard to attempt to elevate himself to such a mythical status," Diggle said. "With our very best efforts, he will not be the last."</p><p>Thinking back to the meeting of dark wizards, Charlie realized the older man might actually be more right than he realized, because when he and Wahde had seen him, there were glowing white runes on his skin, and they seemed to go under his black robe and multi-colored tunic. <em>Ron and his friends were doing something like that at some point, only I think they manually scarred themselves rather than laying them down magically, because it kept them from being detected and just washed off by Thief's Downfall gates. Since it was probably Hermione, we'll have to get her to see if she can't do the same for the rest of us.</em></p><p>They heard the sounds of someone crashing through the jungle, but it was only Mundungus.</p><p>"They're half an hour, walking," he managed, catching his breath. "Can't be any fewer than thirty."</p><p>"What about Bakr's personal guard?" Diggle asked. "He should have between five and ten-"</p><p>"They'll be tied up with the negotiations," Tonks said. "They can't let Sirius and the African witch try anything funny."</p><p>"Would they know what to expect?" Charlie asked.</p><p>"We have reason to believe one of them is a Death Eater, probably Lestrange. Lord Black isn't going to surprise him with anything."</p><p>"Isn't that funny, a dark wizard exchange program," he muttered. He had never had the twins' skill with jokes, but he had a sense of humor, even if it seemed to be uncooperative at the moment. "I wonder if Voldemort has anyone from around here."</p><p>"I don't know about around here," Diggle said. "From what we know from the Kalahari, however, there's a good chance he has something Semitic."</p><p>"That's the north. Phoenicia- Sirius and I were in Tunisia not too long ago. There were a few people there who called themselves Phoenician."</p><p>"Of that I am sure, yet-"</p><p>"There's no time for that," Tonks interrupted. "We need to prepare."</p><p>Agreeing, Charlie went with her. <em>Just like we sent Mundungus to scout, they probably sent someone to get a feel for our defenses. </em>There was something that confused him apart from why they were looking around when they had human detection charms.</p><p>"Can we not apparate through our own defenses?"</p><p>"Only in places. Hermione asked me to lay down some specific 'breaking runes' to disrupt the anti-apparation warding. No one should recognize them, especially since they're a few inches underground." <em>It takes skill to place them when you can't see them.</em></p><p>"So apparating would entail going from one point to another until you're in?"</p><p>"There's still some running involved. Some points, you can apparate, and others you can disapparate. We learned to make the distinction when we were setting up the new holding cells in the Ministry sub-basement a few years ago."</p><p>"Right," he said, remembering he would not know what Law Enforcement was doing just from the occasional update about his father's department. As it was, he could think of no particular weakness in the design, since it would even allow them to escape if necessary, but it would only be necessary if they had to abandon all hope of winning, and he had a responsibility to keep that in the picture. "What do we do once they get here-" he started to ask, but Tonks stopped suddenly and help up a hand.</p><p>"We'll get to that when we get to it. I need you to listen. You're the creature expert. We need to find anything the enemy might be using as a scout."</p><p>Being so designated was not the honor he might have imagined in his Hogwarts days. There were so many creatures in the world, and they all behaved so differently, but in ways he could mostly explain if he had access to the proper material. There were a few exceptions, like the rare helpful Grindylow, but he wrote a proposed explanation for his N.E.W.T. without stating that he came up with it himself.</p><p>"I think I hear something," he said. "It's a Fwooper, but it's distant."</p><p>"Aren't their songs supposed to drive you mad?" Tonks asked, causing him to remember the magical African bird was at least briefly covered in Care of Magical Creatures.</p><p>"That's only when they feel threatened. The mating calls are painfully high-pitched, but not harmful."</p><p>"There's a mating call, then. How is that unusual?"</p><p>"They don't have a good sense of smell or hearing. They really only call for partners when they've seen one in the area." He got his wand out. "What concerns me is that there's a bird here that's not responding." <em>Sirius told me that Anamagi are relatively common in the Ashanti Kingdom. If Bakr has been recruiting from there, he'll have something that can get past our human detection charms.</em></p><p>"I don't know a spell that can deafen us," the Auror said, implying their best hope of finding it was wandering around until they hit it.</p><p>"I've got a better idea." He concentrated on his understanding of the bird from classes and personal experience. They were always sold with a silencing charm applied, but he had at least seen them in open-air markets in various parts of magical Africa. "<em>Avifors,</em>" he incanted, a bright orange bird with a hunched forward head appearing before him. "Hermione wouldn't have told you anything about any kind of rune we could use? Were you ever trained in runes?"</p><p>The only answer Tonks offered was to freeze the bird in place, cut a few runes into the skin with sparks coming out of her wand, and then healing the feathers.</p><p>"We're sending this off after the other one?" she asked. "It'll know how to find another one?"</p><p>"It'll at least get us in the right direction."</p><p>Unless incredibly skilled in wandless, silent magic, the Animagus was not able to cast spells while in an animal form. <em>The outer wards, or some of them, should be keeping him from just fleeing outright. If he turns back, Tonks's charms should get him. </em>Charlie silently prayed the newly conjured bird could find another of its species as he released it. The Auror was casting the human detection charm, loudly, if for no other reason than to keep the enemy scout from realizing they were onto his tricks. In a matter of seconds, a crashing could be heard, and he dodged a dangerous-looking spell coming from that direction, but Tonks managed to hit him with a stunner.</p><p>As they walked over to the position of the unconscious scout, they saw that it was a witch, and one he had seen before, on the coast of Tunisia. <em>Was she from there? She looks a little darker, but I guess she still could have been. </em>He realized he had no good way of determining if she were from the Ashanti Kingdom or not, but he hardly saw how it mattered except to complete the mental picture he had of how Bakr might have recruited his army.</p><p>"Do you recognize her?"</p><p>"Sirius and I ran into her one time. I couldn't have said what made her stand out so much, apart from being, well- Sirius was pretty drawn to her."</p><p>"Oh, he was," Tonks agreed, facetious. "I'm sure you had nothing to do with it." As they petrified the enemy scout, he decided it was hardly worth the effort to recall for his partner that he had even gotten onto Sirius about the necessity of asking random witches as to where they might find dark wizards. <em>It's been a long time since then. To think I used to be looking for Bakr, so I could get to Said, so I could get to Goldberg, and that was all after I came down here for Ginny.</em></p><p>He tried to think of what the plan had been with her. Would they have just taken her back to Hogwarts and given her a stern lecture about running off to other countries and breaking laws in the process? It was pretty obvious that what the Order was doing was different, but it was a whole organization. <em>We just asked too much of her. She didn't ever see the school as a place worth defending, just a gladiatorial deathmatch stadium. She was probably dreading the trip her first year and we never realized.</em></p><p>Though Charlie did not come home very often, he did make a trip just before the last Weasley went off to London to board the Express. At the time, though, he had been more interested in Ron's account of the return of Voldemort. <em>I can't really blame myself for that.</em></p><p>They had the witch in the manor in a matter of minutes and woke her up with conjured rope around her. <em>If she turns into a bird, we'll just stun her and she knows it. </em>She blinked a few times and accepted her circumstance quickly.</p><p>"I must applaud your creativity," she said. "I shall have to remember that trick in the future."</p><p>"Magic is magic, south of the sea," he recited, remembering what she told him. "I didn't think you'd be involved with dark wizards."</p><p>"Did you think we were proud of the muggles, as you call them?" she asked. "I was like our leader. I grew up among them."</p><p>"You're trying to lift them up?" Tonks asked. "The enforcement of the Statute may have been left up to local authorities, but we have the right to intervene if any egregious breach is-"</p><p>"-discovered, made evident, or suspected, we know," the strange witch listed. "You have not asked how we meant to do it."</p><p>"Do you think you're just going to show them a few magic tricks?" Charlie asked. "It's going to be just as simple as that?"</p><p>"No, we have learned not to do anything like that. We intend to take over their world with as little visible magic as possible. Once every major leader is under our control, we shall unite them under a common goal-"</p><p>"This is all for Africa, then? The land, its people?" Tonks asked. "Even if no one else is, you should be familiar with how different-"</p><p>"We have no one else," she said. "The do-no-magics will learn to get along under our direction."</p><p>"There isn't time for this," Charlie said, putting her under the tranquilizing spell he used on unruly creatures. He knew about conquerors in history, and to his moderate chagrin his youngest brother probably knew a little more, and as complicated of a subject as it was, the best kind of conqueror was the accountable kind. If a secretive group of dark wizards intended to force everyone around them into an era of peace and prosperity, it was an entirely different thing than muggle armies taking over muggle countries, or magic conquering magic.</p><p>"It's kind of like what Grindelwald wants-" Tonks started.</p><p>"Not really," he said, heading back outside. "He's trying to get rid of the Statute entirely, not just get around it. The last thing this war needs is another side, but there it is."</p><p>"Where are we going?" the Auror asked, probably not liking being dragged around without an explanation.</p><p>"We're going to conjure another Fwooper. We don't want Bakr's forces to realize she's been taken."</p><p>"They almost certainly already know that. They're less than half an hour away, and she hasn't reported to people using the mind arts, or she has-"</p><p>"They're not using that to communicate from a range. When Sirius and I found the Lost City of the Kalahari, even walking a few feet away from the city would put you out of their reach. She's not going to tell anyone anything while she's unconscious, and she'll be like that until she's woken up."</p><p>"We're looking for other scouts, then," Tonks said, adapting quickly. "Animagi? I can't begin to describe how valuable it would be to have a Legilimens closer to the base." Charlie thought it was more likely the former than the later. The fact that they found one scout did not mean there were not more, nor did it mean the tactics the scout had employed were bad.</p><p>"Hermione wouldn't let them in her head, and we barely know anything about her ward design. We have to watch out for that anyway, though. If they figure out how to apparate in here, we're dead."</p><p>"Dead, you say?" The pair of them rounded quickly, wands drawn, to see a trio of young students, probably from Uagadou.</p><p>"How did you get in here?" Tonks demanded. There were two witches and a wizard, and two of them were carrying wands themselves. <em>The other wizard could be from Botswana. Could be like the rustic with the picture runes.</em></p><p>"You do not know everything," the witch said, twirling her wand through her fingers. "Did you know that no amount of warding can keep an Erumpent out?"</p><p>Charlie could use a specialized beast detection charm to verify that there were none in the area, but he would have heard them.</p><p>"You don't have one, so it doesn't matter. You're young, so we're not inclined to-" Spellfire like a white ribbon emerged from one of the wands and he ducked under it, kicking the wizard in the knee as Tonks shielded against the witch. <em>Better take the opportunity. </em>He hit the other wizard with a stunner, but he did not seem to be at all phased. The wizard with a wand hit him with a thunderclap hex, forcing him backward and ringing his ears in the process. "DIGGLE!" he shouted, hoping backup would arrive.</p><p>The Auror was having better luck blasting the younger witch back with a jet of water, though the wandless wizard made her scream with a punch she caught in her free hand. Charlie was only just managing to get to his feet as she put him down with a killing curse, distracting the other wizard, whom he knocked out. The witch tried to run, but got caught by one of the wards, and then a stunner to her back.</p><p>"Tonks, he's a kid," he managed.</p><p>"I didn't enjoy it!" she shouted back. "Look, I stunned the other one- I'd have- I'd have done anything else about this one, but he would have killed me-" She attempted to heal the broken bones in her hand.</p><p>"Sorry. Any idea what was up with him?"</p><p>"I was about to ask you. You're the one who's been down here."</p><p>He shook his head. The dead wizard's white shirt had moved to give the slightest glimpse of a glowing, intricate design.</p><p>"If it's what I think it is, we don't have a chance in hell."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0051"><h2>51. Arachnophilia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Miss Granger." It was Diggle's voice. She looked up from the Mesopotamian rune she was trying to use as a binding agent between layers of wards. It was not likely, not according to anything she knew, that someone could figure out the basic structure from the mere moments she made enough of the wards visible to see what she was doing, but she was up against an enemy whose abilities were unknown to her.</p><p>"Sir?" she asked. <em>If the others are correct, there will at least be some attempt to understand and unravel my arrangement before brute force is used. I have to-</em></p><p>"Miss Tonks and Mr. Weasley have found spies within our boundary. They are looking for more presently, but they asked me to inform you."</p><p>"How?" she asked, not looking at the older wizard. "I haven't had- any- indication someone-" She rotated a ward with runes of the more familiar Elder Futhark. "-well, got in-"</p><p>"We are quite confident that if there had been any indication, you would have told us. In any event, Mr. Weasley is concerned that if one wizard aided them in escaping your notice, the method may well be reproducible, and then their entire force may- Perhaps there is something else I should explain first. In certain regions, especially among Bantu Peoples, wizards employ pictures instead of runes in warding. They are more time consuming to create, as I understand, and have to be created perfectly in order to function, but they may slip past certain mechanisms of detection-"</p><p>"Damn," Hermione uttered. "Well, that only proves my concerns were correct. I can't begin to analyze the wards- where were they written? -drawn?"</p><p>"They were written on the body of one of the young wizards. Regrettably, as they endowed him with more defenses against magic, there was no effective recourse-"</p><p>"He's dead," she summarized, not looking at Diggle though she knew it was impolite. The floor of the Blacks' sitting room was covered in open books and scrolls on top of wards she had hidden, and she would hate to step on any one of them as she went to lay down a modern sensory ward. "His soul is no longer with us, so actively used wards would have faded by now. They weren't cut or drawn into his skin, then?"</p><p>"No, it seems that his culture relies on a combination of wandless magic, picture wards, and a form of divination known as Ditaola in which bones are cast against a patterned background. Their designs are preserved in the physical world by being painted or dyed, as the level of detail requires thin strokes that would easily heal if cut, and it would be a challenge getting them to stick to the skin and remain perfect if drawn. When employing the correct colors-"</p><p>"I'm sorry, sir, colors?"</p><p>Hermione knew it was perhaps the least pertinent matter she could address, but something about it was sticking out to her as a clue into broader magical theory. She could not resist the urge to discover more, even if the adults were all concerned with plugging a hole in the defenses. Not for the first time, she wished Terry were with her. At the very least, he would not think there was anything odd about the fact that she had transfigured and enchanted her own robes with a red glow, or if he did, he would find some clever way of asking about it.</p><p>"Indeed. Part of the reason these pictures are difficult to recreate exactly is because the correct colors must be used; the same pigmentation is often needed to replicate the color properly." <em>That at least makes sense. Colors can be magically controlled with the color change charm, but the pigment itself might be an ingredient.</em></p><p>"Thank you," she said, sighing a bit. She completely understood the necessity of standardization for the purpose of magical education, but in places where for whatever reason that was a lower priority, there were many commonly understood ways of performing magic. <em>It seems all forms of expression have some sort of magical equivalent. </em>Hermione had not seen it, but would not be surprised if there were magical dances. Where the theory of communicating, that the caster could be understood by other witches and wizards, hit a snag was with nonverbal magic. Adding to her growing list of assumptions, the Ravenclaw witch supposed that nonverbal magic violated numerous theories whenever it originated.</p><p>"If it interests you, I am quite sure that the magic practiced by people here can be studied and replicated," Diggle stated.</p><p>"That is what I would think," she said. "I learned a fair bit whilst I was in China, and I have no idea why central-south African magic would be any different. I should really ask someone to show me something sometime. The primary difficulty I can foresee is that there might not be written resources on the subject." <em>That's probably part of how these cultures have held onto their magicks for as long as they have. Translating a book is somewhat less challenging than translating a lesson as it is being presented. </em>"Magical education, then, would mostly be given by oral presentation."</p><p>"Mostly, yes, because most children do not end up going to Uagadou or other schools. Our friend Wahde read quite a few books at school, and she is not alone in this regard. Oral tradition has a distinguished history, to be sure, but the limitation lies with the human memory. A great many folk tales have circulated among the Bantu peoples, but not nearly as many as in cultures of literacy. The magical children and the do-no-magics, as they are called, share the same collection of stories."</p><p>"Parvati was saying something about stories," she commented, trying to rack her brain for what it felt like she was supposed to remember at the perfectly opportune moment. "Are there any mentions of powerful artefacts?"</p><p>"Ah, for that type of story, you can be sure that Anansi was involved." Diggle seemed particularly pleased to be relating the story. "Depicted sometimes as a spider, and sometimes as a man, Anansi is believed to be the world's first Animagus, and possibly the originator of Animagery. Akan spiritual tradition credits him with the creation of the first inanimate human body." Hermione could not help but compare him to Merlin, or perhaps the Founders of Hogwarts. "He was even said to have a calabash that contained all the world's wisdom."</p><p>"A gourd?"</p><p>"An enchanted gourd, to be sure, perhaps a book would have been more intuitive, but in these days there were no books, and the magical and nonmagical alike primarily thought to store things in jars." He thought for a moment. "Since there is an association, reasonably, between wisdom and the head, I would not find it astonishing if someone came up with a cap or crown that contained the very same."</p><p>Hermione had heard of a Pensieve, but the structure and purpose seemed different. Rather than containing memories where they could be viewed, the artefact most likely could do the reverse; it could plumb sources of memory outside of the head, and then directly insert them into the head. That approach would have its drawbacks, like the feeling of being overloaded with information, something with which she was intimately familiar, though the design allowed the user to take a break from it at the very least.</p><p>"Would Anansi ever have been to the Lost City of the Kalahari?" she asked, trying not to think about how terrible it would be if Lord Voldemort ever got ahold of such an artefact. <em>Then again, perhaps he already has-</em></p><p>"Almost certainly, yes," Diggle said.</p><p>"I think the calabash might have been enchanted with a form of the mind arts. Between what Terry told me and what I read myself, I understand that in some cultures, especially ones without writing, there is an emphasis on learning from one's ancestors in the spirit world, some sort of magical realm that only the most talented and knowledgeable can access. In a sense, this acts as a Pensieve in that it contains memories, so there would be a source of external memory for the artefact to plumb."</p><p>There was a vertical blue circle across the room and she managed to identify it as an especially sensitive heat detection ward. It was worth a look, but not much more. The older wizard cast a Patronus Charm to inform Mundungus as soon as she shared her thoughts.</p><p>"I find your theory interesting, but am I correct in assuming that normal books would be immune to the artefact's perusal?" Diggle asked. The young witch only nodded. "It seems understandable that Anansi would fall, even with such a font of memories; I would think anyone would; how many memories are useful? How would one sort through all those memories?"</p><p>Hermione sighed.</p><p>"The only way you could sort out truth and knowledge is by being very wise. Lady Ravenclaw, who supposedly possessed a similar artefact centuries ago, once wrote that all creatures are capable of observation, but only those who have understood what they observe and care to know the truth are capable of being made wiser. In a sense it was a word of encouragement to children, who have limited experience, and for this reason the first-years of her House are often made aware of it at Hogwarts, either by an older student telling them, or because they admired the Founder and felt the need to read as much as possible about her."</p><p>"Man's greatest treasure indeed," Diggle observed. A Patronus arrived in the form of a jackrabbit. "And yet, from time to time it is more pertinent to have the words of a confederate than all the wisdom in the world."</p><p>
  <em>"We didn't find anyone else, but they're coming soon. Wahde and Sirius are going to keep trying to negotiate with the leaders, because they're tying up more of their resources than our own."</em>
</p><p>Hermione nodded. There was no need to respond, no need to say anything to the wizard, who was already taking her hand and standing with his wand at the ready. Turning to her wards, she did not need to make the outermost circle visible to have an idea of where the 火 was, since she always put it at '3' given that 气 was at '12', due north according to the compass charm that caused her wand to point north. Aligning a Germanic ward with the rune for water, ᛚ, on the 水 of the outer circle, she could have the outer ward activate a smaller one, which also contained ᛊ, the rune for the sun and thus the counterpart of the cuneiform on a circle whose true purpose was the 𒈗, the symbol used for a king. Assyrian symbols were a pain to even remember, which was why she used them as little as possible, but they were mercifully simpler than the Sumerian pictographs from which they evolved, and carried a greater array of meanings.</p><p>What was useful about the cuneiform was that it had been in use for literal millennia, uninterrupted, before the first wand or staff was ever crafted, and by consequence entire seas of ink had been spilled in ferreting out the function of the symbols. Much of it was incorrect and no longer studied, to be sure, but if an author took the proper approach, starting from the facts and the fundamentals and building on that rather than making wild claims and trying to figure out how to support them, some amount of knowledge would be gained, and the author would be worth remembering.</p><p>By consequence, making appropriate and accurate reference to any cuneiform symbol promised the effect of a masterclass in spellcraft.</p><p>The warm sensation in her feet told her the outer circle had been penetrated by the fire character, 火, which confirmed the efficacy of the sensory ward she had not yet tested, as well as the intelligence Mundungus managed to gather about their most likely angle of attack. Thinking of the Assyrian cuneiform ward, she squeezed Diggle's hand and he apparated her straight into it, right on top of the presently invisible symbol, 𒈗. As a final method of preparation, she held her wand vertically in front of her, rather like a scepter.</p><p>
  <em>TURN AGAINST BAKR OF THE DRAA.</em>
</p><p>Hermione had her eyes closed in concentration as she poured every ounce of power and skill in Legilimency, taking advantage of a momentary gap in the occlusion ward. Squeezing the hand of the old wizard again, they were back inside the manor a moment before she cast an anti-apparation jinx.</p><p>"Did it work?" he asked hurriedly. "I would not relish-"</p><p>"We don't know- can't know yet. There are going to be more of them." Concentrating on the sensory ward beneath her feet, she felt as if they were on a bed of nails. "That way-" she said, pointing and using her wand to cancel the jinx for a moment. Realizing she forgot to rotate the wards as she landed, she tried to do so remotely with her wand, getting a feel for the situation with her eyes and ears at the same time.</p><p>There were five or six dark wizards not far from her position, and probably more approaching from different directions- <em>They most likely assume the wards are set up like landmines- spread out in different positions. </em>When the Assyrian ward for the king rotated to be right under her feet, it occurred to her that it would be a foul surprise indeed.</p><p>
  <em>TURN AGAINST BAKR OF THE DRAA.</em>
</p><p>Diggle apparated them out without being asked as several curses flew in their direction.</p><p>"That was a bit close, Miss Granger. I'm afraid I can't advise putting ourselves in the dead center of an unseen position again."</p><p>"You're probably right," she conceded, putting up the anti-apparation jinx again. Their approach was faster than she could manage on her own. She knew Tonks was probably activating some of her wards, and fighting the dark wizards they had not managed to turn with a combination of Wei and Shi. <em>If Charlie's anything like his younger brother, he'll be right out there with her. </em>She had lost track of exactly how many Weasleys there were, but she could use a few more at the present.</p><p>Hermione felt a a few different sensations in her feet and removed the sensory ward, since it was circumstantially useless. One of the much older house wards was reacting to someone being at the window and she shielded in that direction as a strange wizard managed to crawl through a hole someone had blasted. He was shirtless and there was a glowing blue depiction of a spider on his narrow chest.</p><p>"<em>Stupefy,</em>" she incanted without missing a beat, though the African wizard dodged it with inhuman agility and punched the shield. While that would ordinarily present no problem, he appeared to have magically enhanced strength, and the shield cracked.</p><p>"<em>Arania Exumai," </em>Diggle incanted, blasting the wizard backward. "Curious," he said. "-and yet exactly as expected."</p><p>"Perhaps you've learned to expect the unexpected, sir," the Ravenclaw ventured, moving a hair out of her eye. "I have a friend who's quite good at that."</p><p>"It's good she has you, then, for the filtering... oh, dear, I might have twigged on something," he said, looking out the broken window as he repaired it. <em>The wards are still broken, but there's a chance that they won't realize there's a break.</em></p><p>Mundungus, Charlie, and Tonks came in through the opening left for them in the apparation defenses and Hermione closed it behind them.</p><p>"You bought us some time, but the others are dead already," Tonks said. "You might have gotten about ten of them, and they killed a few, we killed a few, but either there were more of them than we thought, or some of them were just that powerful."</p><p>"How can Bakr be stronger than they are?" Mundungus asked. "They're going to kill him one of these days- surprised they haven't already-"</p><p>"It doesn't make sense to worry about that right now," Tonks said. "What we need to be doing is keeping them out."</p><p>"We can't keep them out forever," Charlie managed, looking like he was getting to be out of breath. More of an athletic inclination, he dodged more than he shielded in duels, and it probably served him well enough against dark wizards.</p><p>"You're right," Hermione said. "Some of them must be able to resist the magic I've been using." She doubted she had been in range to hit every one of their assailants, but if there were wizards who had warded themselves to shrug off stunning spells, it was something she had to consider. "It's going to be dark soon; we'll have the advantage if we need to escape-"</p><p>"Miss Granger, there is no way we can escape," Diggle argued. "All of Africa watches this battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the forces of darkness; as little as I like it, we cannot be seen to lose here."</p><p>"There are five of us!" she reasoned, somewhat desperately. "We agreed that if necessary, we would escape!" The Ravenclaw could feel the spells colliding with the manor, more aware than anyone else as to how long the defenses would hold. She had almost forgotten to add muggle repelling charms, until a very confused militant wandered through the area the previous day.</p><p>"Actually, there are six." Everyone turned to see Andromeda Tonks surface from the fireplace in a flash of green flame. "Grindelwald decided it was entirely too late to continue our discussion any further."</p><p>Hermione hoped like nothing she had ever hoped before that the talks had gone well, having a painfully limited idea of what was at stake and what had been established thus far. She was at a loss of what to do about her current situation and still trying to sort out everything else the Order was doing. <em>Calm down, Hermione. You're not the leader. You're not responsible for what you cannot control.</em></p><p>The door threatened to throw open again, else be blasted off the hinges. As much as it allowed her to predict their actions, the brute force approach made sense for the invaders, because with sufficient force, any magical barrier would break. She let the others try slowing them down while she laid down more wards, hoping to try the same trick as before. <em>We know where they're coming in this time. We have to hope that they won't be resistant to it. </em>With her inexpert use of Shi and Wei giving her more, there was no other word for it, power in ways she did not fully understand, she could reasonably expect Legilimency to work against anyone whose Occlumency was not so strong she was kept out entirely.</p><p>All around her there was fighting as she tried to lay down wards. Mundungus and Charlie were throwing curses out the windows whenever there seemed to be an opportunity, Tonks was placing shields and obstruction charms on the door, some part of her mind recalling that Ministry employees could effectively repel more than just muggles, and Diggle seemed to be keeping the three of them on their feet with shields, while apprising Andromeda of the situation. <em>Well, at least no one's wasting time asking me what I'm doing.</em></p><p>It was not the first time she thought to herself they were letting her take a combative, authoritative back seat, but she was grateful for it in this particular instance. She tried to place the runes as quickly as possible without mistakes, reminding herself that one error would make it all useless when a witch came tumbling though the window that was already broken. Andromeda responded with immediate lethality, but not perfect accuracy as the invader witch needed only sway to the right to avoid the curse, while transfiguring a hole in the floor under her opponent who was shielding. <em>Damn- damn it all, if only I'd protected that window- </em>Everything was happening at once. Diggle was somewhere, probably trying to get Andromeda out of the hole, the invading witch sent a curse at Mundungus, who had moved away from the window, Charlie was trying to shout over Tonks, who might have been saying they would be in before long, and she was still trying to finish up the warding. <em>Damn it, if only we had one more-</em></p><p>The fireplace flashed with green flame once more, which distracted the invader long enough for Andromeda to kill her as she held onto the edge of the hole with a free hand. The Ravenclaw could only stare while laying down a ᚦ with her hand and a 𒆜 with her wand.</p><p>"Hi, Hermione, sorry I'm late. I got a patronus from- oh, well, that doesn't matter, does it?"</p><p>"Your entrances are about as bad as your potions," Hermione said, tears coming unexpected and unbidden. "Now help us fight."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0052"><h2>52. Dualism Explained at a Fifth Year Level</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hannah needed only a short time to take stock of the situation; she already knew her friend needed help. She wanted to hug Hermione after not seeing her for so long, but apparently there were more pressing matters. Another enemy was coming into the window and this one was more skilled than the last. She shielded instinctively, but the wizard responded by blasting her eyes with some kind of painful light curse, blinding her through the shield. Responding aggressively out of an inability to dodge whatever came next, she used an explosive charm, which caused him to scream in pain.</p><p>Blind, she could not see whether or not he presented any further threat, so she tried to heal her eyes, though it felt like the fog of white was clearing. Someone shouted from somewhere that she had only blasted his right hand off. <em>Only? The explosive charm works on humans? I thought I would hit-</em></p><p>"<em>Reducto!</em>" she cast again, this time at the screams, this time close enough to where even a blind witch could not miss, and this time there was no scream afterward. As her vision cleared she could tell her enemy had been going for his wand with his other hand until she blew up most of his head, which got blood everywhere. <em>Great. Now everyone on the order thinks I'm a monster. </em>Shielding out the window, she reminded herself she really was a monster, and there were more pressing matters to attend.</p><p><em>Hannah, I need your help with something. </em>It was Hermione's voice speaking in her mind.</p><p><em>Yes? </em>It felt weird letting down her Occlumency, but this was her friend. She looked outside, but there were no visible threats by her window.</p><p>
  <em>I think we've killed most of the Legilimens among the enemy. They would have been the most susceptible to what I'm about to try again. In a few minutes, I need you to really batten down the hatches.</em>
</p><p><em>What is this? Some kind of mental attack- wait, I think the shield charm works against active Legilimency. It was in that book you gave me. </em>There was no response for a second. She cast a stunner just in case there was someone invisible outside, but the spellfire did not appear to hit anyone.</p><p>
  <em>You might be right. In that event, this might be useless. I need to try something else.</em>
</p><p>Hermione, however, was left with no further choice as the doors were thrown open. All at once all the wands in the room were pointing out and all the wands outside were pointing in; the spells were indistinguishable from their number; neither could she tell who was shielding; everywhere there were overlapping translucent shields of every description. An old man fell over almost immediately, but at least it seemed some of the others were going down. When one wizard charged right into their spells, someone brought him down with a killing curse and the shields of the invaders turned an inky black.</p><p>Laughter rang out as they pressed in, the Order forces on the retreat; a middle aged wizard running for it as his killing curses proved ineffective. She found herself going with an adult witch as they went out the window, the others apparently going up the stairs. Breathlessly she tried to ask what they were going to do, millions of unhelpful ideas running through her head. She had attempted the killing curse a few times, but with the dark shields, the fact she had not managed it was no longer relevant.</p><p>"You're not meant to be able to block it," she complained, if a measure uselessly. The witch who had gone with her out the window, and now crouched beneath the very same window, was Andromeda Tonks. She scanned the interior of the room.</p><p>"There are five of them that I can see. I do not believe our friend Diggle is dead yet, but he has not long." She looked back at Hannah. "The killing curse, along with other works of the dark arts, can be blocked with a physical shield. Magical shields are quicker and do a better job of blocking most spells. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with something that could block both light and dark magic."</p><p>Hannah scowled, but said nothing. <em>The killing curse can't travel through physical barriers. Physical objects can't travel through conventional magical barriers. Spells that can travel through physical barriers can't travel through magical barriers. </em>Levitating a book from the floor, she tossed it to one of the invaders in the room. <em>Physical objects can travel through dark shields.</em></p><p>She tried reaching out to Hermione, but all she could do was make herself available apart from mastering Legilimency in the next few minutes. Andromeda noticed her development and looked like she was about to collapse the ceiling, but remembered their friends were still up there. <em>Hermione must have put unrelated wards down to allow them to retreat upstairs. If there were people trying to get in through the windows down here, they might be dealing with someone who can fly up there. </em>The Hufflepuff witch hated that she could not join and help, but if Ron were there, he would say that dividing up the enemy was the only chance they had.</p><p>"Night is falling. We can get-"</p><p>"Shh-" Hannah interrupted. "I see someone." The doors opened again and there was a relatively light skinned witch with no hair. She was speaking English, which seemed to make everyone else suspicious of her, but enough of them spoke it to where they at least understood her.</p><p>"That's my daughter," Andromeda said. "While she's distracting them, we need to deal with the ones out here. There can't be any more than two or three."</p><p>Crawling around the edge of the great manor, there were indeed three of them, hanging around the door, though they would not be there long if they saw people go out the window. Wordlessly they decided to go after the wizard who was by himself first, noticing he had a staff and was followed by something canine that appeared to be made of magic. The beast was probably not one of the spirit creatures Terry mentioned, but she guessed she could not entirely rule it out. <em>It's not just Hogwarts students who research foreign magical theory.</em></p><p>Hannah put up a muffling charm and Andromeda hit him in the back with a killing curse as soon as he was out of sight of the others. The sound was not going to travel through the muffled zone, according to Hermione, because the sound waves needed an environment in which they could propagate. It was clear enough that the older witch was a bit rusty with magic, but she must have practiced the killing curse at least, which she supposed was a good place to start if there was a war on. She still hated the idea of killing people, especially after she got away from the Ministry school by leaving a slew of partially shrunken bodies in her wake.</p><p>Unfortunately the other invaders looked the wrong way when they took out the wizard and figured out their position. Hannah shielded and raised a bit of earth in front of them to protect against dark magic, Andromeda killed the one still standing up while the other jumped for cover. Annoyed, the Hufflepuff used a fire charm to get him to move, but heard something right behind her and rolled over as she realized the magic beast had caught their scent. She use a magical shield to give herself a moment to think as the dark wizard dodged curses and responded with a few of his own. She heard several loud bangs from the manor as she put more shields up, blocking the bizarre creatures inside a rough cube before turning back to the wizard. He had taken the opportunity to fire something that looked dangerous at her, and she could only think to respond by throwing herself over the box of shields.</p><p>Andromeda found her staring straight up, dazed after hitting her head harder than she would have liked, if it was nothing life-threatening.</p><p>"We have to get out of here. Our allies probably apparated to another Order base-"</p><p>"That wasn't Apparation," Hannah explained, getting to her feet. "Those were gunshots." She could feel Hermione trying to get into her head as they made their way back to the side of the manor.</p><p>
  <em>Hannah, please, I know you're busy, but I need to speak with you for a moment.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Where did you get a gun?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There was a muggle militant whose memory had to be modified. For some reason, he left a weapon behind, and Diggle was worried a child might pick it up- I figured that since Ilsbeth of Silesia describes dark magic as a perversion of the natural world, ignoring its laws- that doesn't matter either- I need you to open your mind.</em>
</p><p><em>My mind is open. You're in it. </em>She waved a hand to Andromeda in an attempt to demonstrate that she was in a conversation.</p><p>
  <em>Not entirely. You have more than one mind.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Have you ever noticed you can hear better than a normal human?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I'm not a human.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That's right. You're never fully human or fully beast. In this state you're mostly human, and in a few minutes you're going to be mostly beast.</em>
</p><p>Hannah froze. She could to some extent blame the jet lag for not remembering it was a full moon, but of course Hermione would know.</p><p>
  <em>Have you ever heard of the yin and yang?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione, is that what this is? Did werewolves come from China?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I don't think so. The origin of werewolves is quite apocryphal. A magical theory I read there, however, is starting to make more sense.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I've been told I have two bodies and two minds, basically.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Good, I don't want to have to go over that. This conversation is taking place orders of magnitude more quickly than a spoken conversation, but- basically, in some sense, your beast body and mind are there, under the surface, even while you're in human form.</em>
</p><p>That idea was hard to process. She knew she could smell things there was no way she could smell as a human, but did it have an effect on her mind as well? She tried to think of times where she acted on instinct rather than-</p><p>
  <em>Hermione, I'm a monster. Everything we thought about werewolves is wrong. They're not just fine for most of the month-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hannah, I desperately need you to get a hold of yourself. In a few minutes, Bakr is most likely going to apparate here with Sirius, Wahde, and a few more dark wizards, unless he does not receive the message that the invasion was successful.</em>
</p><p>She tried to focus on the task at hand, not replying. Andromeda was only looking at her with concern.</p><p>
  <em>If it makes you feel any better, we're all animals. I'm an animal. I have instincts.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione, I can feel the change starting.</em>
</p><p><em>Get Andromeda to summon silver and hold a piece of it. </em>She did as ordered without thinking about it. The older witch summoned a silver locket and put it around her neck.</p><p>
  <em>Why are we doing this?</em>
</p><p><em>Have you ever noticed you don't sustain any injuries from when you were a beast? </em>Hannah shook her head. <em>That's right; you don't remember. Silver is the only way to kill a werewolf apart from dark magic because it links your human form with your beast form. I need Andromeda to put you through the window right as you start to change and ward it behind you. Tonks will know to get out of there.</em></p><p>She could feel the physical change taking place already, and she could feel her human mind retreating. Hermione was still talking to her, though it was getting progressively harder to understand what she was saying. Silently and in less than conscious thoughts she begged for her friend to continue as the witch behind her removed the ward on the window. It was no challenge getting in herself, nor was it to draw the attention of everyone in the room as a witch she presumed to be Tonks slipped away, bringing with her the crumpled form of an old wizard.</p><p>It was then that the beast took over.</p><p>Charging through the hastily erected shields, she tore through a wizard's throat with her claws before trying to do the same to a witch, who retreated and sent some sort of dark curse at her. Leaping out of the way, she put herself close to another target; she grabbed and sunk her teeth into a witch's wand arm, careful to snap both bones before moving again. A wizard shot fire and ice in her direction from the same staff, and she only managed to avoid part of each blast before closing the distance, but the magic did little more than singe part of her coat while frosting another. Once she was on top of him, she grabbed him and moved him into the path of a dark curse from the last witch standing. A wizard attacked her from behind, throwing her through the air and painfully onto the ground.</p><p>The moment before she could form a conscious thought, she rolled out of the way of a dark curse and got back on her feet. The man's body was glowing with a picture of what she instinctively recognized to be a runespoor. He was strong; a fair measure stronger than she was, but she was confident she was the better fighter. Leaping out of the way of each of his successive blows, she put him between her and the witch, forcing the witch to reposition herself. <em>Even if he is strong, he doesn't have anything that could kill me.</em></p><p>Ducking under one of his punches, she set her clawed fingers together and jabbed them under his ribs, taking a hit from a dark curse as he spat up blood. The curse, fortunately, did not kill her, but it hurt her like nothing ever had. It was the first time the beast had even considered retreating, but she knew there was little she could do against dark magic. Without any other enemies in the room, she had no one else to put between her and the threat. <em>If I go out the window, she will not be able to follow me.</em></p><p>Throwing herself through a broken window, she found feel the silver against her chest and the mental pressure from a witch upstairs, but she forced herself to run all the same. All of a sudden, however, she was restrained. Her body was bound by silver chains, probably conjured by the witch who was making her way toward her. A dog approached from another direction. He seemed less like a threat, as well as on the same side as the witch.</p><p>"Hello, beast, my name is Andromeda Tonks. This is my cousin, Sirius. Hermione is sorry she could not keep a mental link with you through your transformation, but this is the first time she has tested her theory."</p><p>The beast only growled.</p><p>"Don't worry about the other witch; Hermione, Charlie, and Mundungus will be more than enough to handle her. What we need you to do now is sleep and let us break one of the curses on you." There was a blackness obscuring her vision and she could only think it was dark magic, but she was effectively powerless to resist as she lost consciousness. She felt the presence of the human in the dark as she slept. It was not the normal circumstance, where one mind was awake and the other was asleep; it was as if they were both in a state of semi-consciousness. Unfortunately for the witch trying to communicate with one or both of them, neither was in any fit state to respond, and she slept.</p><p>When Hannah woke up, it was morning and she was in a strange bed. Looking over to her right and left, Hermione was sleeping in a chair and Andromeda Tonks was awake. She tried to form words, to ask what had happened while her beast form was in charge, but she felt like she had a massive headache all of a sudden. Fortunately, the adult witch seemed to anticipate this and handed her a potion.</p><p>"If you are wondering where everyone else is, my daughter has reassigned herself to help my husband with something. Sirius and Wahde, you have not met, though you may have heard about them, arrived last night after exiting negotiations with Bakr of the Draa. Our friend Diggle is still alive, though I cannot say whether he will remain alive for long. Poppy Pomfrey is looking over him."</p><p>"He'll be fine," Hannah said, having been in the witch's care before. The beginnings of a theory that some old Hogwarts staff would be joining them now that the Order had established itself formed in her mind, but she turned her attention to something else. "What happened with the negotiations?"</p><p>"Hermione made it her primary mission to keep the invaders from contacting their master after Sirius told us that he would state he was confident the Order would win, and that would be obvious when no victorious call came back. Apparation was blocked both ways, the floo is not really familiar to most people from this region, and no owl or other bird would be able to get through the warding. Even if we had to flee, there was a chance that it would still seem like a victory."</p><p>"I'm confused." She tried sitting up. "What did we win?"</p><p>"When you survive a fight to the death, the reward is normally the rest of your life. In this instance, however, Sirius only asked that if we won, and the invaders did not report a success, the dark wizards would acknowledge that we are the legitimate Order of the Phoenix, with Wahde being a spiritual successor to the late Albus Dumbledore."</p><p>"They agreed to that?" Hannah asked.</p><p>"Bakr most likely knew failure would but him in no position to refuse demands, with most of his fighting force gone, and he was quite confident the imminence of his victory. His servants gave him the impression the Order was spread out, but quite small in number, and a couple anti-apparation jinxes would be enough to fix a few of us in place."</p><p>"Was that why we installed the Floo?"</p><p>"Having a mechanism of travel that we exclusively control is certainly a good thing, but the initial reason was because you and Hermione, as well as your friends in Belize, have not yet learned to apparate. I should mention that we managed to capture a few dark wizards and witches alive, and currently they reside in the dungeon beneath the manor, though I suppose more properly it is simply a pit."</p><p>"Bakr got away, then?"</p><p>"When Sirius and Wahde announced their victory, he still had his personal guard. He knew better than to harm either of them, but it was not as if they could apprehend him. He will likely remain a feared dark wizard, which is ultimately better for our plans."</p><p>"You're starting to sound like Diggle," a voice from the doorway said. It was Hermione.</p><p>"I can hardly help that," she said, getting up to leave. "We are from the same House, after all." She turned around as she got to the door. "There was something Dumbledore told us when he accepted his new position as Headmaster. Hogwarts will always remain as long as there are those who remain loyal."</p><p>"Thank you, Mrs. Tonks," the Ravenclaw said. "For the record, I think you would make a good teacher."</p><p>Hannah told her friend what happened to Ron as soon as they were alone. She was concerned, clearly, but even if she was riding the rush of victory, she was confident she could do something to help. The Hufflepuff felt as though she could hardly even explain what was wrong; she kept having to use Burmese words that she in turn had to explain, but at length Hermione simply stopped her from explaining.</p><p>"It's okay. We'll work together and figure something out, like always."</p><p>"We still don't know where Terry is," she said. "Ron wanted to go after him, but he didn't have a ghost of a lead-"</p><p>"The Death Eaters are as spread out as we are, Hannah. We'll have to do our best." Her friend sat on the bed next to her. She was not the best of comforters, but it looked like she was trying.</p><p>"He might die, though... He might be dying right now, as we're talking about him."</p><p>"Hannah, wherever he goes, he'll be pleased to know we still remember him and we still care about him." She sighed a little. "It circles back to what Mrs. Tonks said. Hogwarts isn't gone as long as we remain loyal. I can't tell you what happened to the wards without looking, but nothing whatever dark wizard did to the stone or magic of the castle was half so deleterious as what the students did to the school."</p><p>She allowed her friend's words to sink in, remembering how they turned it into a battleground, the winner at which meant to turn it into a propaganda machine. Exhausted in more ways than one, she wanted to rest, but she had to get back to Burma before Mad-Eye left without telling anyone, and if one thing were certain, her friend was coming with her. There were a number of stupid ideas in her head, but at this point she could not think of anything dumber than splitting up.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0053"><h2>53. Epilogue: Scar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theodore Nott was doing his best to contain himself as he paced through the small library in the Riddle house, as he learned it was called.</p><p>Betraying Draco Malfoy had been the right move in the long run; his only concern was having acted too soon. It was, of course, easy to come to that conclusion as the hour of his death drew near, but even if he did perish, the magical world would have a true heir to a truly noble house, and would therefore be led to its salvation. His father told him for the eighth time that week that pacing would do him no good; the pair of them had already looked for every conceivable way out of their predicament, including tunneling through the floor, and all they found there was an unbreakable boundary. The Dark Lord himself had designed this prison, after all. The rational mind could be quite confident the only way for either of them to leave was if someone opened the front door.</p><p>They were quite surprised when that was exactly what happened.</p><p>Their guests, however, were not there to free them. Comprised as they were of a smattering of elder and younger and Hufflepuffs, he had every expectation that they were there to hasten the already certain demise of himself and his father. Theodore readied his wand, as the best selected words would yet be wasted, but his father was inclined to some final remarks.</p><p>"Everything I have done, I have done for the magical world and its people. The Dark Lord has brought her out of the sclerotic death she was dying, and his heir will have the power to overthrow him when the time is right; when the pursuit and receipt of power renders him too great or too mad to see a threat for what it is. Only a powerful wizard can save our world, and with every generation the ancient House of Slytherin will produce one more powerful than the last. Kill us, if you must, but you will be quite helpless before Evan. It is a great irony that you should have listened to the bleating of Albus Dumbledore, who insisted that might did not make right-"</p><p>"<em>Silencio,"</em> one of the wizards incanted.</p><p>"Spare us your conspiratorial nonsense," another started. "It is you who stand powerless, your master surrounded by enemies, and the decision of the conference at Ys accepted by the Albanian Ministry, at long last."</p><p>A witch among their numbers, somewhat older by her height seemed to be casting detection spells.</p><p>"It's too soon to count our chickens, isn't it," she said. "There's a right nasty ambush on its way here." She looked over to what remained of the Nott family as she drew out a long, translucent cloak. "Butties of yours, are they?"</p><p>Theodore had not heard of any rescue party arranged; he could hardly imagine who would want to free him, but there would be enough who wanted a chance to kill a few Hufflepuffs, else take them prisoner. It seemed likely the Black Sea Sorcerers were the opportunists, but perhaps it would furnish them with the opportunity to escape all the same. The muggle library of the Riddle house had proved itself most uninteresting, and his exodus was the only thing overdue.</p><p>Right as it felt like the spells were about to start flying, the door opened again. A witch he instantly recognized as Flora Carrow, ex-Hogwats, ex-Beauxbatons, and current Durmstrang student, stepped in to draw the attention to herself. <em>She had a way of doing that. Looks like she even drew two of the wands to point at her. Unfortunately, one of those still pointing at us belongs to an Auror with an invisibility cloak.</em></p><p>"What the hell are you doing here?" a witch his age asked.</p><p>"The boys are dealing with some Grindelwald supporters who showed up to kill you after you were done with these two. They thought I would be more than sufficient help to turn this little battle in our favor." Her eyes narrowed. "You know how quickly I can deal with ten of you attacking me all at once, don't you?" Three wands pointed at her.</p><p>The physical shields were erected in time to block the dark flesh-rending curse he could attribute to a French warlock if he had the brain cells to spare, but his father acted first, casting a killing curse into the back of a younger wizard without a trace of remorse. The Auror sent a curse in his direction, forcing him to dodge, but his father's dark shield gave him the opportunity to respond with one of his own. His target was no longer there as it arrived, having thrown on her cloak and repositioned, but he was lucky enough to hit the younger witch, freezing her in place. A killing curse came at them several feet from where the enemy had been last, but his father's shield absorbed it to the probable shock of the caster. <em>Her next target is either me or Flora. She doesn't have time to think of how to get past the dark shield.</em></p><p>Steeling himself, effectively preparing for death, Theodore hit the other wizard in the back with a body-bind as Flora blasted away against his increasingly desperate shielding. Killing the witch instead of going through the rest of it, she turned to help them against the invisible Auror right as he was forced to dodge a killing curse after his father's detection charms failed to locate its caster, the last enemy still mobile.</p><p>"Father, use Fiendfyre-" he started, right before he had to dodge again. It was all he could do to watch out for whence the curse might come; he could hardly think of fighting back. Flora's spell had a chance of working, since it had an effect on an area, and he knew the enemy could not apparate, but the next killing curse told him nothing had hit her yet.</p><p>"I can't, not with you here-" his father responded, managing to block the next one.</p><p>"<em>Aguamenti!</em>" he incanted, spraying a jet of water and moving his wand around. He readied himself to dodge a killing curse, but his father was rooted in place as some sort of rock or piece of masonry flew in his direction, hitting him hard in the chest, through the shield. Able to do nothing else, he kept spraying water in all directions, The Auror was dodging the water, not wanting to get hit by Flora's waves of dark magic. Another killing curse came in his direction, but this time he blocked it with the jet of water and kept spraying. <em>Physical barriers do not have to be solid.</em></p><p>After dodging a killing curse aimed at her, Flora took to standing on the other side of the old Nott, who had put up more shields to block flying rocks. Somewhat ambitiously, he even put one in front of the door. Theodore was hit by a knockback jinx, coming too quickly for him to dodge, and it knocked him into a shield. His wand flew out of his hand almost immediately. A piece of the ceiling came down on his father.</p><p>"Just the two of us, it is," they heard the Auror say as he scrambled, looking around for his wand. "Give yourself up and tell me about this plot," she ordered. Flora cursed in the direction of the voice, but laughter rang out elsewhere. <em>Some sort of ventriloquism charm...</em></p><p>A body bind towards Flora interrupted his thoughts. With no other method of survival available, he threw himself in front of it right before the witch cast the flesh rending curse again. A blood curling scream rang out; it was the sweetest music to the frozen Theodore, as it meant the curse had at least glanced their enemy. Flora cast again and the screaming stopped.</p><p>"<em>Finite,</em>" she said, pointing at him.</p><p>"My father..."</p><p>"Your father is dead. That absolute hag dropped a piece of the ceiling on him after depriving you of your wand. She might have thought you would have used the water to push it away." Flora smiled a little as she walked over and picked up the dead Auror's invisibility cloak. "Of course, she never suspected the real reason you were putting out so much water."</p><p>He was not in the mood to have his cleverness praised. His father's body was not even cold. It was all he could do not to break down. <em>How am I to live without you, father? How will Evan... </em>His grip tightened around his father's wand. <em>Malfoy is a fool and he can't even see it. His efforts will be of some use by the time all this comes to a bloody end, but he will number among the dead.</em></p><p>"<em>Accio wand</em>," he incanted, snatching up his own familiar wand of elm and phoenix feather as it flew to him. "Where are the others?"</p><p>"I wouldn't worry about them."</p><p>"Wherefore-"</p><p>"Evan and Erik can take care of themselves. It's just a few Gryffindors."</p><p>"Why, then, did you come here for us?"</p><p>"You're useful, potentially, and you've already taken a few of his orders. The fact that you've found yourself at odds with most of the other Death Eaters and the Dark Lord is a benefit in Evan's eyes."</p><p>The two of them walked over to the petrified student they had decided to leave alive, mostly due to his not having been an immediate threat. They would have killed him if necessary, but it was not to be. Something in Flora's eyes indicated she recognized him as she took his wand from him.</p><p>"Wayne Hopkins," she said, removing the body-bind curse. "You're lucky we didn't kill you, but then, so are we. The official story here is that when you four attacked this place, our friend here got away, and we were only just in time to kill you, but catching you alive will make it even better. You were one of the ones casting explosion charms left and right, weren't you?" She cast a lazy sort of look at the front door. "Did you know Erik lost his brother in that ordeal?"</p><p>The young wizard instantly recognized what she meant.</p><p>"Please- you can't do this to me; I'm a pure blood."</p><p>"I know; it truly is a shame. The Dark Lord, however, will not see it that way."</p><p>"No, not Voldemort- anyone but-"</p><p>"<em>Petrificus Totalus.</em>" She tossed her head. "It really is a useful spell, and it's simple enough that a first year can learn it," she observed. "It hardly surprises me you and the other vassals never dedicated that much time to learning the killing curse."</p><p>"Most of them are all right," he said.</p><p>"Tell Evan when he gets-"</p><p>The door opened.</p><p>A pair of wizards covered in blood walked in; the younger of which was still stuffing a veritable collection of wands into a bag around his neck. He ignored everyone else as he picked a few off the dead Hufflepuffs.</p><p>"I have one here for you," Flora said, extending Hopkins's wand. "I don't believe its owner will be needing it any longer." She then extended the cloak to the Heir of Slytherin. "This, however, is for you."</p><p>"An invisibility cloak?" Evan asked. "Brilliant, Flora, I don't think I've even seen one before." He turned to the last Nott. "It appears Malfoy doesn't have as many thoughtless lackeys as he thought."</p><p>"He's really the only filth in his whole operation," Theodore explained. "He acted like he cared about losing Crabbe, but he never so much as frowned. In days before that, Goyle lost his father and if he ever said anything, it did not reach my ears. He cheated on his girlfriend and his only true concern was your finding out about it." He hung his head a bit. "In this time I feel I must reveal that Davis-"</p><p>"Davis acted exactly as she was ordered. When did you begin to realize you served a fool?"</p><p>"My father is a Death Eater; he told me that Malfoy had incurred the Dark Lord's wrath on numerous occasions." He sighed. "I don't entirely blame him for never telling us, but he erred so far as to make it seem like he was on speaking terms with most of the Death Eaters. Rarely, perhaps as often as the equinox, did he treat us like wizards and witches and tell us the truth. The final offence was acting like liberating Grindelwald was anything other than a punishment."</p><p>"I see... There will be some use for Malfoy going forward, but he will never know why you chose to kill his vassal Bole."</p><p>"Why was that?" Flora asked.</p><p>"Last year, there was an incident with a first-year of our own esteemed House, Mafalda Prewett. Bole, the blackguard, called her a blood traitor and implied her only use was to conceive of heirs of a greater blood quantum on her first day. I was somewhat surprised she did not start crying immediately."</p><p>The witch only smiled at that.</p><p>"Then he only said what many of us thought."</p><p>"He said it, and then some of his minions tried to take her by force. That was the fateful night Evan told me there was a way out. What was it you said? 'There are many ways to walk in the dark; you may as well keep straight'? I confess, I did not know what it meant when first I heard."</p><p>"Perhaps neither of us need walk in the dark," Flora suggested, looking at the dark wizard with long, dark hair. <em>How did I not see it before?</em></p><p>"Not long the Dark Lord told me I was not the Heir of Slytherin, for it was he, I realized who I truly was. The name my adoptive father gave me will... serve, as long as life remains to me; I find I am accustomed the name Evan and enough people believe I was named after the Death Eater, Rosier. I shall only become the Heir to the great House of Slytherin when the current heir dies, and battle with him is my destiny."</p><p>"You will not survive," Nott advised. "Out of any who continue to draw breath, you know the power of the Lord Voldemort."</p><p>"That much is true," Evan responded. "Did you know he does not sleep? I have no idea what magic controls that particular function."</p><p>Theodore had no idea himself. Books were generally written on a subject when there was a general interest in it, so the revenue from selling the publication would be worth the costs at the very least. It seemed like something unique to a dark wizard that he would desire to never sleep again. <em>He has to be using some manner of healing charm on his brain, the better to replace the recovery cycle.</em></p><p>Putting thoughts of the Dark Lord out of his mind for the moment, he started to think of his own future. The three who had come to his rescue seemed to imply they would be hiding him, since they intended to claim he escaped, so they probably had some place to stay, probably out of reach of the ever expanding jurisdiction of the magical governments of Europe. He wondered how long Georgia, where Durmstrang was located, could hold out before being incorporated. <em>At a time like this, I have to share Malfoy's lack of confidence our master.</em></p><p>His liberators seemed to have no such concerns, however. Erik had only just finished picking up the wands and inspecting them, and Evan was talking with Flora about how they distracted the group outside with a horde of snakes before just killing them from behind with a few different dark curses. The witch only chided that if he visited such destruction on blood traitors in a nonmagical area, they would probably risk a Secrecy violation, and that would mean the chore of killing a few muggles.</p><p>"Excuse me, are you blood purists?" Theodore asked.</p><p>"Not really," Evan said. "Flora is, Erik was raised that way, and I'm at least on the same page about ancient lines and the muggle threat, but no, I don't think pure bloods are any better than anyone else. I'm a half blood, same as the Dark Lord." Erik nodded in agreement. He seemed a taciturn sort most of the time, not unlike his elder brother, but he seemed somewhat less thick.</p><p>"And you?" the witch asked.</p><p>He thought of how best to make an impression; it seemed ideal to agree with Evan, though he had not put himself in the middle of his associates. For some reason, however, he felt it would be better to be honest, and his elementary Occlumency did not lead him to suspect he had been made to think that way.</p><p>"Complications abound. Father believed the war is necessary, even though it will be the end for some of us."</p><p>"You cannot very well value magical blood if you mean to throw it headlong at those who want to destroy it, yes," Flora said. "And yet, there is no one else who will fight for the pure of blood except the pure, and one cannot very well value magical blood unless you have someone fight for it." Evan rolled his eyes as she spoke. Theodore had heard such arguments before, and he imagined it was the same way with the wizard who spoke Parseltongue, but the dynamic was strange to him. Evan would be showing her no such disrespect if she were the leader, and if he were in charge, he would not be standing by while she disagreed with him.</p><p>At the moment, though, it seemed better to keep his thoughts to himself.</p><p>The invisibility cloak seemed to have fascinated its new owner, though not as much as Erik, who liked powerful magical artifacts and could tell it was much older than a standard cloak, and to retain its properties after so long was quite the unusual sight. He had heard some truly ancient stories about the Peverell brothers, as every other pure blood child, but he had never once believed them. <em>It could have been an inspiration, some old artisan who believed in the tale when he was younger-</em></p><p>"Is this the true cloak, then?" Evan asked. "One of you must have heard about it."</p><p>"I have heard of it," Flora said. "Unfortunately, I know no more of its recent ownership than anyone else. It should not surprise us that so powerful an artefact would fall into the hands of the Ministry, though; they already have the Goblet of Fire."</p><p>"Yes, as soon as we return to our birthplace, our mission will be its recovery, whether in the short term or otherwise."</p><p>There was a pause. It occurred to Theodore he might have spoken too soon. <em>It is entirely possible they share my fear that we shall never return to our home; that as our childhoods it has been taken from us forever. Hogwarts has fallen. The ancient lines have been driven from the shores to the last child. No one has heard from Macnair; the days and nights that have passed are too long for him to still breathe.</em></p><p>"I rather like the way you think, Nott," Evan said. "I should like to get to know you better. Perhaps this will be the start of a great friendship between our houses."</p><p>At a loss of how to react, Theodore only nodded, rather reminded of Brutus and his speech on the tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. He started on a rudimentary plan of his next few moves, all previous thoughts having been made irrelevant. If there could be any certainty, no quarter would be afforded to Malfoy, and no chances about him would be taken. <em>He has grown stronger than even he can divine. Allowed to grow stronger, he will be more useful when at last we bring him to heel.</em></p><p>"Show me your arm," Erik said.</p><p>Theodore revealed he was not marked without hesitation.</p><p>"Brilliant," Evan decided. "Everything we've said, we've said knowing that... someone... might be listening." To say he smiled would be an exaggeration; his lips merely twitched, their edges almost entirely obscured by the draping of his long, black hair.</p><p>"You really should have a haircut," Flora suggested, looking at the same face that captivated Theodore. "I could do it myself, you know- Daphne would not be able to take her eyes off you."</p><p>Evan only responded with a somewhat more amused, visible smile, the piercing sight of his green eyes turning to the witch. Erik stepped between them.</p><p>"We've places to be," he said.</p><p>"I suppose," Evan said, putting the cloak away. "Perhaps... you would like to meet my adoptive father, Nott."</p><p>"I fear I already have, Snape." Theodore grinned as his new friend brushed the hair out of his eyes to reveal something he had only just begun to suspect might be there. Where before he had seen only part and assumed it was a mark of abuse, concealed as was expected of their young bearers, he saw now the lightning-shaped curse mark for what it was. "Mean you to tell me where you earned that?" he asked.</p><p>"Oh, Evan, you know what to say for that," Flora said, flickering to a playful look. "Say you got it in a fight, and the other wizard had it worse."</p><p>As the four of them buried his father's body, Theodore decided not to reveal how close to the truth the witch had come with her suggestion.</p><p>
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    <em>A/N: Here we are at the end of Much Worse than Death, where must I in equal measure thank you for your patience and implore you not to spoil this particular reveal. I suspect some have already figured out what is revealed in this chapter, but do not, either in reviews or on social media, deprive other readers of the proper first impression of this series. Perhaps there are not many of these readers, perhaps they do not generally mind spoilers, but I have no interest in finishing a series if major plot and character points are commonly known. I shall be grateful if everyone takes the same amount of care as I have in keeping the secrets going forward. With that out of the way, let us meet again at the end of The Shameful Human Weakness, the publication of which will start next Friday.</em>
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